A white Airbus A-319 of the French presidency carrying the coffin of Arafat landed at the airport, and Egyptian First Lady Susan Mubarak and senior Egyptian officials walked to winding stair and shook hands with Suha Arafat, widow of Yasser Arafat.

Egyptian security sources said that a funeral will be held in a mosque near the airport Friday morning, adding that prayers and military ceremonies would take place before the body was taken to Ramallah for burial.

The decision to hold the memorial ceremony in Cairo will make it easy for Arab leaders to pay their last respects to Arafat without setting foot on the Israeli-controlled lands and for guards to protect world dignitaries who are due to attend the funeral.

Arafat, who was born in Cairo in 1929, graduated from an engineering school in the city, and forged close ties with the Egyptian leadership during his struggle to win Palestine's independence.

Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and has then played a key mediating role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

75-year-old Arafat died at 3:30AM (02:30 GMT) Thursday at the Percy military hospital in the southwestern suburb of Paris, where he had been treated for a blood disorder since Oct. 29.

(Xinhua News Agency November 12, 2004)