RAMALLAH, Aug 10: Mahmoud Darwish, whose poetry encapsulated the Palestinian cause, will get the equivalent of a state funeral in the West Bank on Tuesday --- an honour only previously accorded to PLO leader Yasser Arafat. President Mahmoud Abbas has declared three days of national mourning.

Darwish died on Saturday after heart surgery in Texas.

“The passing of our great poet, Mahmoud Darwish, the lover of Palestine, the pioneer of the modern Palestinian cultural project, and the brilliant national leader, will leave a great gap in our political, cultural and national lives,” Abbas said.

“Words cannot describe the depth of sadness in our hearts,” he added.

As news from Houston filtered through, people, some weeping, gathered round candles in the darkened streets of Ramallah. The poet had made his home in the West Bank city since returning in the 1990s from a long exile during which he rose to prominence in Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Palestinian television interrupted programmes to air film of Darwish, the “national poet”, reading from his work.

He won new generations of admirers with work that evoked the pain of Palestinians displaced, as he was as a child, by the establishment of Israel 60 years ago. He also touched on broader human themes like love.—Reuters