Not at death’s door after all. From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Kemaste:
Yasser Arafat has a large gallstone, a Palestinian hospital official said Tuesday, as the weakened Palestinian leader broke his Ramadan fast and underwent more medical tests at the urging of his doctors.
The gallstone is not life threatening and can be easily treated, the official told The Associated Press.
Palestinian officials insisted Arafat, 75, was simply recovering from a lengthy bout of the flu. However, Palestinian medical sources said he has been inexplicably exhausted in recent weeks and Israeli officials have speculated he is suffering from stomach cancer.
Teams of Egyptian and Tunisian doctors have examined him in recent days. On Monday, he underwent an endoscopy, or exam of the digestive tract. And he has not led Muslim evening prayers at the makeshift mosque in his compound, as he has done in the past during the fasting month of Ramadan.
UPDATE: The staff here in Secure Undisclosed Locationville is having fun with this one. “Arafat has gallstones? It figures: he’s sure got a lot of gall.” Etc. You fill in the blanks. (Extra update, with apologies to the commenters: I hadn’t read the comments before I added it. I should have figured you’d be ahead of us at the office on this.)