RAMALLAH, Nov 11: Preparations were under way at Yasser Arafat's battered West Bank headquarters late on Thursday for the Palestinian leader's burial in soil brought specially from his beloved Jerusalem.

The grind of trucks and heavy earth-moving equipment droned on into the night even as the Palestinian people struggled to grasp the loss of their iconic leader who is to be laid to rest Friday at the compound in Ramallah.

With Israel refusing to allow the Palestinian leader to be buried in Jerusalem, the long-hoped-for capital of a future Palestinian state, Arafat's lieutenants did the next best thing - and brought Jerusalem soil to him.

After a long, emotional day of grieving and mourning, most of the crowds had left the compound by nightfall, leaving only small pockets of security guards and news cameramen.

Although the bulldozers and dump trucks fell briefly silent, with workers given an hour off to break the Ramadan fast, they were soon back at work for what was expected to be an overnight shift to clear more of the mountains of rubble lining the edges of the compound.

Three bulldozers, a fire-engine and several huge trucks were still parked on the concrete late Thursday next to several large piles of asphalt for resurfacing uneven patches around the outskirts of this 3,000-square-metre compound.

Multiple army raids had reduced the site to a charred heap of rubble, with only Arafat's living quarters and offices left standing, but hours of heavy labour which started Wednesday have succeeded in freeing up a large open space in the northern half of the complex.

At the eastern side, close to the surrounding wall, bulldozers had prepared a burial plot where the Palestinian leader is to be laid to rest under two cypress trees.

For the burial, officials said Arafat's body would be placed in a concrete coffin which could be moved at any time to a final resting place in Jerusalem. -AFP