MOUQATA'A AND MUSEE YASSER ARAFAT

Headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, it was at the Mouqata'a that Yasser Arafat was besieged and kept under house arrest for two years before his departure in October 2004 for the Percy military hospital in Clamart, France, where he died in November 2004. A museum dedicated to the Palestinian leader was erected there at the end of 2016. Spanning two floors, the interactive museum features videos and photos of Yasser Arafat and Palestine. The room in which Arafat spent his last years, besieged by the Israeli army, is also on display. As well as objects and clothing that once belonged to him, including the sunglasses he wore during a speech he gave at the United Nations in New York in 1974. Yasser Arafat's tomb is located in a mausoleum built within the Muqata'a compound. The mausoleum is an impressive marble cube measuring 11 m on each side, surrounded by a pool and topped by Qur'anic verses. It is considered a temporary burial place, until Yasser Arafat's wishes to be buried near the al-Aqsa mosque, or elsewhere in Jerusalem, are fulfilled. Until now, the Hebrew state has refused this, officially for security reasons, fearing Palestinian gatherings in the vicinity of a mausoleum in the middle of Jerusalem (East Jerusalem, where Yasser Arafat is said to be buried, has been considered occupied territory since 1967 by the Palestinians and the international community).