Gaza City - Maan
Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed al-Hindi said Friday that late president Yasser Arafat was killed for not giving in to pressure to sign an agreement at the Camp David summit in 2000. Speaking during a rally in Gaza City, al-Hindi said that Arafat was under a lot of pressure to sign an agreement in 2000 with Ehud Barak, but refused to give in. Arafat was put under siege after returning from the summit, before being poisoned for his unyielding position, the Islamist leader said. The late Palestinian leader refused to give away Jerusalem, al-Hindi said, and set red lines on Palestinian national rights. A French court launched a murder inquiry last year into the 2004 death of Arafat in a Paris military hospital after his widow said he may have been poisoned. No autopsy was carried out after Arafat died, aged 75, a month after being flown to France, seriously ill, from his headquarters in Ramallah. Allegations of foul play spread quickly after French doctors said they could not establish a cause of death.