Arafat, 75, who has been struggling with what doctors say is severe flu and gallstones, weakened significantly Wednesday night, heightening concerns that Palestinians are ill-prepared for their leader's death.
The passing of the 75-year-old Palestinian leader would be an event on the scale of the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. As president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Arafat has no equal and no one shares his stature or legacy.
Notorious for keeping his own counsel and pushing away those who threaten him, Arafat has not groomed a successor. And the expected chaos that Arafat's passing would trigger within the Palestinian territories could further confound the already-complicated calculus of the Middle East peace process.
Since the breakdown of Israeli-Arab peace talks in 2000, the Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada has caused the deaths of some 3,400 Palestinians and nearly 1,000 Israelis. Now entering its fifth year, the tensions show no sign of abating and there is little hope of a formal peace.
Even before Arafat's rapid decline Wednesday evening, factional fighting had left several cities in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories under the control of warring factions in the past year. In Jenin, a young firebrand named Zakaria Zubeidi has run the city for months, and has driven out other Palestinian officials.
In other cities, mayors have been run out of town, while other leaders have been killed by militants who are forging links with criminal gangs. There are few functioning municipal authorities and few signs of police authority.
In Gaza, where Israeli settlers and soldiers control 42 percent of the land, Arafat's deputies have been threatened with assassination, and angry militants have attacked members of his Fatah movement. Security agents loyal to Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan, 43, who has presidential ambitions, have clashed with supporters of another security chief, Arafat relative Moussa Arafat.
If Arafat dies it's unclear if the situation would hold together for local December elections.
