Doctors say Palestinian President Yasser Arafat will require surgery some time in the near future to remove gallstones but otherwise his health is fine, senior Arafat aides said on Tuesday.

The 74-year-old leader's frail appearance in recent weeks had fuelled speculation that he may have anything from cancer to heart trouble and underlined political instability in the Palestinian Authority. Aides had dismissed the rumours.

"Arafat has recovered from a severe stomach infection but Egyptian doctors by chance found, during an examination last month, that he has gallstones which have to be removed at some point," a senior Palestinian official who is close to Arafat told Reuters.

Palestinian officials said Arafat would refuse to leave his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah unless he had international guarantees that he would be able to return.

But an Arab diplomat said the operation was not urgent and that he would not have to leave his headquarters to have surgery, avoiding the risk of Israel refusing to allow him back.

"It could be done any time and Arafat does not have to leave his headquarters for it. Medical teams would move a mobile hospital to his office in Ramallah and operate on him there," the Arab diplomat said.

Doctors say gallstones are the most common digestive disease and form when the liver starts secreting bile that is abnormally saturated with cholesterol. The excess cholesterol crystallises and forms stones stored in the cystic duct or gallbladder.

SPECULATION ABOUT HEALTH, FUTURE

Many Palestinians have said they have never seen Arafat look so ill. An Israeli army blockade has penned him into his headquarters for most of the last two years.

His appearance has fuelled speculation about his health and raised questions about what would happen if he died. Arafat has long embodied the Palestinian struggle for statehood and he has not groomed a successor.

Aides have dismissed daily rumours about his health but say he recently lost weight after days of vomiting and diarrhoea.

Jordan, Russia and Egypt sent medical teams to examine him. Palestinian officials said the doctors found him to be in generally good health except for a bout of influenza and severe inflammation of the stomach.

The Egyptian medical team, headed by President Hosni Mubarak's private physician, brought an ultrasound machine. After testing blood samples, they concluded he did not have cancer or any other potentially fatal illness.

Israel has accused Arafat of fomenting violence in the three-year-old Palestinian uprising for statehood. It has said that it would consider letting him go overseas for emergency treatment but that it is not sure it would allow him back.

The rumours about Arafat's health are only the latest to dog the Palestinian leader, who works and sleeps in two badly ventilated rooms in his half-destroyed compound.

A tremor in his lower lip and hands gets worse when he is tired, but Arafat has always kept a healthy diet. He eats little, mostly vegetables, fish, soup and fruit.

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