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Ramallah/ AFP
A museum dedicated to Yasser Arafat, including the room where the Palestinian leader spent much of his final years under Israeli siege, will open on Wednesday ahead of the anniversary of his death.
Current Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will formally open the Yasser Arafat Museum next to the gravesite of the fighter-turned-statesman in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
The museum, which cost $7 million, is the first of its kind dedicated to the longtime leader, according to the Yasser Arafat Foundation. The opening comes two days before Palestinians commemorate the 12th anniversary of his death in a hospital near Paris on November 11, 2004 from unknown causes. On display over two floors are a range of Arafat’s possessions, including the famous sunglasses he wore when addressing the United Nations in 1974.
The interactive museum also features videos and photographs of key moments in Palestinian history, some from Arafat’s private collection.
The Nobel Peace Prize, which Arafat won in 1994 along with his Israeli negotiating partners Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for the Oslo Peace Accord of the previous year, is on display too.