PARIS, Oct 29: A weak and pale Yasser Arafat was Friday receiving urgent medical treatment at a French military hospital near Paris after being rushed from his West Bank base suffering from a potentially fatal blood disorder.

The frail 75-year-old Palestinian Authority president arrived by helicopter from a nearby military airport, where he had arrived aboard a French government jet from Jordan in an emergency medical evacuation authorised by Israeli authorities.

It was the first time in three years that Arafat, a symbol of the Palestinian struggle for statehood, had left his West Bank base, a sign of the gravity of his condition. -AFP