Yasir Arafat: Tireless fighter for Palestinian freedom (+birth)

On August 24, 1929, Mohammed Yasir Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, better known as Yasir Arafat, a prominent Palestinian leader who fought for the rights of his people, was born.

In 1959 he founded the secular political party Fatah and in 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which he led until 2004.

In September 1970, Arafat was appointed General in Chief of the Palestinian Revolutionary Forces, in honor of his firm struggle against the expansionist policy of Zionism on Palestinian territories.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his efforts to achieve that dream in the Middle East and two years later he became the first president of the Palestinian National Authority.

Yasser Arafat died of a stroke on November 11, 2004 at the Percy military hospital in Clamart, located near Paris, the capital of France.

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