News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Senior Palestinian Authority official Farouk Kadoumi recently told a Tunisian paper that Israel was responsible for the deaths of former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.  Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon killed Arafat using poison, he said.  He accused Israel of “further crimes in Lebanon and Iraq” as part of a scheme to gain control in the Middle East.

Hariri was assassinated in 2005.  Lebanese lawmakers and United Nations investigators suspect Syrian involvement in the killing.  While the cause of Arafat’s death in 2004 has never been revealed, speculation supported by some PA sources includes rumors that he died of AIDS.