JERUSALEM, Oct 23 (AFP) - A team of Tunisian doctors are to carry out a health check on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who has been confined to his West Bank headquarters by Israel for almost three years, officials said Saturday.
The state of the 75-year-old Arafat's health has been the subject of a number of Israeli press reports recently which have suggested the Palestinian leader was suffering problems causing him to limit his activities.
"It is a humanitarian request from a country (Tunisia) with which we are in regular contact and we agreed to meet their request," a foreign ministry official said of the permits for three Tunisian doctors.
However the official did not give any information about Arafat's health.
Arafat's top aide, Nabil Abu Rudeina, told AFP that "a Tunisian medical team is to examine president Arafat" following an offer from Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, adding that Egyptian doctors had recently examined the leader and found nothing wrong.
Arab Israeli MP Ahmed Tibi, a doctor who is close to Arafat, told Israeli radio that Arafat's health was "normal," adding: "He was struck by the flu recently but is better."
The radio said the decision to allow the doctors to see Arafat in the West Bank town of Ramallah was taken personally by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.
Arafat has not ventured out of his West Bank compound since it was surrounded and then pounded by Israeli forces in December 2001, some 15 months after the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada or uprising.
The Palestinian leader has been dismissed as an absolute obstacle to peace by Sharon, who has made a number of previous threats against Arafat's life or to expel him from the Palestinian territories.
Last year Arafat suffered a kidney stone but did not require surgery.
A nervous disorder, usually attributed to Parkinson's disease, causes his lower lip to tremble and, when tired, he appears frail.
Tunisia, where Arafat was exiled after being expelled from Jordan by King Hussein's troops in 1970, closed its representative office in Tel Aviv shortly after the September 2000 start of the latest intifada.
10/23/2004 13:49 GMT - AFP