Arafat's one-way ticket into exile

Support for Arafat has grown during the current intifada

Israel has told Yasser Arafat he's welcome to leave Ramallah - but he can't come back.

Ariel Sharon says that he has received calls from European leaders who have expressed concern for the Palestinian leader. Mr Sharon suggested they could fly him into exile.

Not surprisingly, Mr Arafat has turned the offer down.

The Palestinian leader's decision has received the endorsement of the Americans. The Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said Mr Arafat should stay put.

The UN's Middle East envoy, Terje Larsen, one of those who've been trying to get access to Mr Arafat, insisted that the importance of the Palestinian leader had grown.

"Yasser Arafat is a national symbol more important than a flag or a national anthem," he said.

Foreign ministers of the Arab league will meet in Cairo tomorrow to discuss the crisis. Last Thursday in Beirut - in an historic move - they agreed a plan which offered peace to Israel, along the lines suggested by Saudi Arabia.

But almost as soon as it was announced it was rejected, and the events of the last few days appear to have rendered it academic.

But Hesham Youssef, who speaks for the Secretary General of the Arab League, insisted on PM that Arabs had decisively and unanimously pledged to work for peace, on the basis of the Saudi proposals.

It's not only Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority that's being disrupted. Across Ramallah and in other parts of the region normal life is at an end.

We spoke to Jihan Helou, the director of a children's community education project in Ramallah, and asked how her work had been affected.

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