Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat announced dead

This is not original reporting. All information has been compiled from The Washington Post.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat passed away in his sleep on Nov. 11 at 3:30 a.m. in a hospital in France. No cause of death has been disclosed yet, according to The Washington Post.

The Post said that Palestinian officials have planned for Arafat to be given a state funeral on Friday in Cairo. Arafat will be buried Saturday in his Ramallah compound.

No official successor for Arafat was set by the leader before his death. According to The Washington Post, an election for a new Palestinian leader is to be held in 60 days, and until then, Palestinian Legislature speaker Rawhi Fattouh has assumed leadership of Palestine.

Other former duties of Arafat have been reassigned. Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia is to lead the Palestinian Authority, and former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas will head the Palestine Liberation Organization, stated The Washington Post.

Arafat was flown to France on Oct. 29. On Nov. 3, he fell into a coma and experienced a brain hemorrhage and liver and kidney failure while in the hospital.

According to The Washington Post, international leaders have noted Arafat's death as harmful to peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians. As of now, over 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis have been killed in the Gaza Strip, cited The Washington Post.

Blair staff and students also speculated over the effect Arafat's death will have on the Middle East conflict.

"I think now the Palestinians will be more unorganized, and there will be more terrorism happening," said junior Max Morawski.

History teacher Kevin Moose speculated Arafat's worth as a leader and said that his main question about him was, "Is he a hero? Or a villain?" Moose added that he saw Arafat's 1994 win of the Nobel Peace Prize as a mistake and that the leader "was a terrorist in his younger days."

However, Moose did not express a personal view on what will happen to Palestinian and Israeli tension. "I'm not ready to make any predictions," he said. "It's too soon."