Yasser and Fathi Arafat remembered, 20 years after their deaths
Al Jazeera
Tarek Arafat tells what it was like to grow up with a famous father and even more famous uncle.
Cairo, Egypt – The reception of the Palestine Hospital was busy as usual in early November, but the mood among the Palestinian staff was clouded by an approaching anniversary.
On November 11, 2004, a thunderbolt announcement on all major networks: PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had died in Paris – poisoned with polonium-210, according to an investigation by Al Jazeera and French, Swiss and Russian scientists.
Yasser Arafat was not the only icon the Palestinian people lost that year – his brother Fathi was deathly ill as well, in a coma due to his stomach cancer.
As Yasser lay ill and dying, Fathi woke from his coma suddenly and asked, “Where’s Yasser, is he OK?” Fathi’s son Tarek told Al Jazeera.
He replied, back then, “He is fine, Dad, in Ramallah,” to avoid stressing his father out.
