Palestinians rally around ailing Arafat

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who has been ailing for more than a week, collapsed and fell briefly into unconsciousness yesterday at his compound, Palestinian officials said.

Doctors and senior aides were urgently summoned to the 75-year-old leader's half-ruined headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Palestinian officials said a three-member committee had been chosen to handle day-to-day affairs in the event that Arafat -- who has always refused to designate a successor -- is incapacitated.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said that all Palestinian security forces had been ordered to report for duty.

Both Israeli and Palestinian officials have long feared that Arafat's death or incapacitation could trigger a slide into chaos in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Earlier this year, Israeli media reported that the Israeli army had rehearsed war-game scenarios of riots breaking out across the Palestinian territories after Arafat's death.

The Palestinian leader, under virtual house arrest in his West Bank headquarters since 2002, has been sick for nearly two weeks with what associates have variously described as a bad case of the flu, or gallbladder disease, or both.

Arafat's collapse was reported by two Palestinian officials who cited an eyewitness account and spoke on condition they not be named. Publicly, however, aides vehemently denied that the situation was critical.