Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), arrived here overnight on Friday, a Palestinian source told Xinhua.

Abbas, who succeeded his predecessor Yasser Arafat following the demise of the 75-year-old veteran leader on Thursday, will attend Arafat's funeral on Friday morning.

Heads of state, ministers and representatives from more than 50 countries are due to participate in the memorial ceremony to pay their last respects to Arafat.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the UN special representative for the Middle East peace process Terje Roed-Larsen and US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns are among the attendees.

Following the funeral, Arafat's body will be flown out to his battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah for burial, where he had been confined by Israel for nearly three years.

Arafat, 75, died at 3:30 am (0230 GMT) Thursday at a French military hospital, where he had been treated over the past two weeks.

Source: Xinhua