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NOV 9: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is near death. ``It's only a matter of hours,'' Edward Abington, formerly the U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Ramallah, where Arafat make his headquarters on the West Bank.

Abington said Arafat was in a deep coma and is near death. He said his information came from the Palestinian delegation in Paris. Only Ahmed Qureia, the prime minister, was permitted to see him by French doctors at the hospital because of his grave condition, Abington said.

Traveling in Mexico, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Arafat was gravely ill and that it is a difficult time for the Palestinian people.

Toward the end of President Bill Clinton's administration, Arafat and then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak came close to an agreement under Clinton's supervision. But the deal fell through over the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian demands that refugees from Israel's 1948 battle for independence be permitted to resettle in Israel.

Over the past several days, there have been frequently conflicting reports about the state of Arafat's health. Arafat's wife, Suha, has barred even Arafat's closest aides from seeing him.

On Monday, the French medical team treating Arafat publicly acknowledged that he was in a coma.

Earlier, French doctors contradicted reports by senior Palestinian officials that the veteran leader had died at a Paris hospital.

Another report said Yasser Arafat's condition worsened overnight; an aide was quoted saying he is suffering from bleeding in the brain.

Arafat suffered a brain hemorrhage, top aide Tayeb Abdel Rahim said at the Palestinian leader's headquarters in Ramallah in the West Bank.

The 75-year-old leader started bleeding Monday evening and was in critical condition at the Percy Military Training Hospital in southwest Paris, Abdel Rahim told a news conference.

Several political sources said Arafat, 75, in a coma for the past six days, had succumbed to the mystery illness that led to his being flown to Paris from the West Bank on Oct. 29

"He is dead. It is possible they will delay the announcement," one Palestinian source said. "He died after bleeding in the brain began last night. His bodyguards started hugging and kissing and telling each other to be strong."

But a spokesman for French medical services insisted Arafat was still alive, saying: "Mr. Arafat is not dead."

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia saw Arafat in a hospital outside Paris and planned to return to the West Bank for an overnight meeting.

His wife said: "I tell you they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," Suha Arafat tells Al-Jazeera television, referring to her 75-year-old husband by his nom de guerre.

French doctors kept a tight lid on details of Arafat's condition at the behest of his wife, Suha, who engaged in a war of words with senior Palestinians officials over her virtual monopoly on information from his hospital bedside.

But on Tuesday, as the officials arrived in Paris to check on Arafat, doctors said he had slipped deeper into a coma.

The delegation including Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, Shaath and Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary General Mahmoud Abbas arrived at the hospital after France hinted it was losing patience with the visit dispute....Developing