page_title: Mukataa
section_title: Siege of September 2002
hierarchical_section_title: Mukataa / Arafat's compound / Siege of September 2002
caption_attribution_description: The tomb of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah/West Bank. Behind this huge poster a monument for Arafat is being built.
context_page_description: Mukataʿa is an Arabic word for headquarters or administrative center.
  Mukataas were mostly built during the British Mandate as Tegart forts and were used both as British government centers and as dwellings for the British administrative staff. Some Mukataas also included police stations and prisons. After the British left, the buildings often functioned similarly under the Jordanians, and then the Israelis.
  After the Oslo Accords, the Mukataas were used as governmental offices and headquarters for the Palestinian National Authority. The Mukaatas in Ramallah and Gaza, the two major Palestinian cities, were also used as headquarters to the high Palestinian Authority leadership, including as office for Yasser Arafat, long-time Palestinian Authority president.
  During Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, the Israeli Defence Forces raided the Mukataas in the West Bank. Some Mukataas, including the Mukataa in Hebron, were entirely demolished.
context_section_description: After a suicide bombing struck Tel Aviv on 19 September 2002, the Mukataa was again placed under siege. During the next ten days, the IDF destroyed all of the buildings that had survived the former sieges with bulldozers and explosives, including the main interior ministry building. Only part of the building where Arafat and his people remained was left.
  The siege re-ignited Palestinian support for Yasser Arafat. On 24 September 2002, the UN Security Council demanded an end of the siege, but Israel ignored the Resolution. 
  UN Under-Secretary-General Terje Rød-Larsen, one of the architects of the Oslo Accords, said on 27 September that "the Israeli army's siege of Yasser Arafat amid the ruins of his bulldozed presidential compound could mean "the death" of hopes for a Palestinian state and a peace agreement." He alluded to the possible death of the two-state solution and said that "we're moving in the direction of state destruction and not state-building".
  On 11 September 2003, the Israeli security Cabinet decided to "remove" Arafat, who still remained in the besieged compound. In a statement it said "Recent days' events have proven again that Yasser Arafat is a complete obstacle to any process of reconciliation... Israel will act to remove this obstacle in the manner, at the time, and in the ways that will be decided on separately...". The compound remained under siege until Arafat's transfer in October 2004, for medical care in a French hospital.
caption: The tomb of Arafat. Behind this poster a mausoleum for Arafat is being built
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