RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov 10 (AFP) - The screech of bulldozers shifting heaps of rubble and twisted metal littered around Yasser Arafat's headquarters shattered the late afternoon calm Wednesday, in the first sign of preparations for his eventual burial.
From the rooftops of the surrounding houses and buildings, a growing army of international press and curious onlookers looked on as the bulldozers and heavy earth-moving equipment fought to try to clear the piles of debris surrounding the Palestinian leader's landmark headquarters, known as the Muqataa.
Beyond the rough stone walls of the compound, bulldozers were seen shovelling tonnes of wreckage onto the back of at least four heavy trucks which then dumped the debris in a growing pile in a corner.
Multiple army incursions have left this 3,000-square-metre (32,000-square-foot) compound a monument to destruction, with only Arafat's living quarters and office block left standing.
Until bulldozers started to work in apparent preparation for the 75-year-old's burial, much of the wreckage had been left untouched as testimony to the destructiveness of the Israeli military machine.
"They will build a mosque to Abu Ammar (Arafat) here," said 19-year-old Musa Baasem Ala, who was working on a nearby building site.
"It will be a mosque for the people so that they can come and remember him," agreed his friend, another dusty youth on a cigarette break.
"They will definitely build some kind of memorial for Abu Ammar here but no-one knows what they will build," said construction manager Ibrahim al-Tarifi.
"He was a good man who loved his country, our land. He was a real leader," he said.
Before his dramatic airlift to a French military hospital on October 29, Arafat had been kept a virtual prisoner by Israeli forces in the sprawling headquarters for nearly three years.
This one-time British fort was later used as an Israeli military camp before being taken over as the headquarters of the veteran leader's political establishment.
Shortly before the bulldozers rolled into the compound, Israeli officials confirmed they had agreed to a Palestinian request that Arafat be buried in his landmark compound.
Arafat had expressed a wish to be laid to rest in Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of their promised future state, but Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ruled out that possibility.
However, Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erakat said that once an Israeli-Palestinian peace is reached, Arafat's body could be transferred to the holy city's Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
"I think it (the burial in Ramallah) will be temporary and one day, when we have peace and we are alright as neighbors, president Arafat's body will be moved to east Jerusalem, to the Al-Aqsa mosque," he added.
11/10/2004 15:55 GMT - AFP