CLAMART, Nov 9: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is gravely ill but alive and there is no question of switching off life-support equipment, foreign minister Nabil Shaath said on Tuesday , dismissing reports of his death.

After a day of conflicting rumours, Mr Shaath told a news conference in Paris that Mr Arafat's condition had worsened in the last 24 hours and he was in a deep coma, but that his heart, brain and lungs were still functioning.

"Now the president is very much alive and his body is resisting," he said, several hours after he and three other top Palestinian officials visited the 75-year-old Arafat's hospital bedside.

"He will live or die depending on his body's ability to resist and the will of God."

Mr Shaath said the delegation, which also met French President Jacques Chirac and Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, would leave Paris later Tuesday en route for home.

He said there were no plans to return Mr Arafat to the West Bank as long as he remains under treatment, confirming that he was being kept alive by artificial respiration and a drip.

Mr Arafat, who has become a symbol of the Palestinian struggle for nationhood, is in the intensive care unit of a military hospital outside Paris where he is being treated for an undiagnosed blood disorder.

Mr Shaath said he called the news conference to end speculation about Mr Arafat's state of health, and strongly denied suggestions that doctors would practice "euthanasia" by switching off life-support equipment.

"I want to rule out any question of euthanasia. People talk as if his life can be plugged in or plugged out. This is ridiculous. We Muslims do not allow euthanasia," he said.

In the West Bank, Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erakat said that doctors were trying to stop Mr Arafat's brain haemorrhaging, news which prompted hundreds of Palestinians to pour onto the streets of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah in a show of support for their ailing leader.

Shaath's comments conflicted with remarks from a member of the Palestinian cabinet in Ramallah, who had told AFP on condition of anonymity earlier that Mr Arafat had died but no decision had yet been taken on when to make an official announcement.

Separately, an agreement on funeral arrangements to be made in the aftermath of Yasser Arafat's death was reached in Gaza City between Israeli and Palestinian officials, a senior Palestinian official said on condition of anonymity. "Senior Palestinian and Israeli officials have reached an agreement in principle on the arrangements to be made after the death of President Arafat," the official told AFP. He refused to give details about the agreement, and in particular whether Israel had given the go-ahead for the Palestinian leader to be buried in his battered Muqataa compound in the town of Ramallah.

Other members of Mr Arafat's entourage also denied the earlier death rumours, as did the spokesman for the French army's medical service who reiterated that the veteran leader was still in a "deeper coma." However, Mr Shaath sought to reassure the international community that systems were in place to ensure the functioning of the Palestinian Authority if Mr Arafat should die.

He said the Palestinian parliament speaker would become interim president, and with international help would try to arrange presidential elections within 60 days.-AFP