sourceRAMALLAH, West Bank - Yasser Arafat, who triumphantly forced his people's plight into the world spotlight but failed to achieve his lifelong quest for Palestinian statehood, died Thursday at age 75.
The French military hospital where he had been treated since Oct. 29 said he died at 3:30 a.m. The Palestinian leader spent his final days there in a coma. Doctors would not disclose what ailment killed Arafat.
In the first comment from an Israeli official, Justice Minister Yosef Lapid blamed Arafat for global terrorism and the failure to achieve Middle East peace, but expressed hope of improved relations under new leadership.
PARIS (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac, confirming Yasser Arafat's death, has hailed the Palestinian leader as a man of courage and conviction who embodied the Palestinian struggle for a state.
Prime Minister John Howard says Yasser Arafat will be remembered as a leader who failed to grasp an opportunity for peace in the Middle East.
"I think history will judge him very harshly for not having seized the opportunity in the year 2000 to embrace the offer that was very courageously made by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barack, which involved the Israelis agreeing to 90 per cent of what the Palestinians had wanted," he said.