CLAMART, Nov 10: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat remained close to death on Wednesday as a senior religious figure prayed at his bedside and an aide declared his life to be "in the hands of God".

"He is alive. He is ill and his condition is very bad, but he is still alive," Tayssir el Tamimi, the head of religious courts in the Palestinian territories, told reporters.

"I remained at Arafat's side for almost one hour and I asked God to relieve his suffering," Tayssir Tamimi said. However, with his death now seen as inevitable, preparations were under way in the Middle East for his funeral, and some members of his entourage who had arrived with him 12 days ago left Paris for Cairo.

His death "is a matter of hours", said one member of the entourage.

The 75-year-old veteran of the Palestinian struggle was in deep coma at the Percy military clinic outside Paris, where scores of journalists remained camped out in expectation of a new medical bulletin.

On Tuesday a series of contradictory claims about his death concluded with Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath affirming that Mr Arafat was still alive though on life-support equipment, and earlier on Wednesday, the Palestinian representative in France, Leila Shahid, said there had been no change.

"Like yesterday he is in a deep coma with complications in the condition of all his vital organs, so he is in a very critical state. The reality is that he is in the hands of God," she said.

Tayssir Tamimi's arrival in Paris encouraged rumours that a death announcement was imminent, but he denied suggestions that he was there to authorize the switchoff of Mr Arafat's artificial respirator.

"There is no question of switching off the equipment. It is against Islamic law which bans this type of practice. As long as there is warmth and life in his body, we cannot switch off the equipment," he said at the hospital.

Leila Shahid also denied that "euthanasia" was being contemplated. "Clearly a man of religion should be near a patient in the final phase of his life," she said.-AFP