RAMALLAH, Palestine

The nephew of late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Thursday repeated his accusation that Israel killed the iconic leader.

"I had a conviction, as well as all Palestinian people, that Arafat's death was not normal but from poison," Nasser al-Qudwa, who is also a former Palestinian foreign minister, told Anadolu Agency.

Israel is "the single accused" and "perpetrator" of Arafat's death, al-Qudwa claimed, alleging that the agents of other actors may have collaborated with Tel Aviv.

Arafat's mysterious death

On Nov. 11, 2004, Arafat died in France -- under highly suspicious circumstances -- at the age of 75. At the time, doctors were unable to determine the exact cause of his death.

In November 2012, forensics experts from Russia, France, and Switzerland exhumed Arafat's body, from which they took samples in the hopes of determining how the iconic leader had passed.

The experts ruled out assassination, however, saying that the presence of Radon gas -- a radiant natural gas -- in the external environment could have led to the high level of radiation found in Arafat's body.

In an investigation broadcast by Qatar's Al-Jazeera television channel, the Swiss Institute for Radiation Physics revealed the presence of radioactive polonium in Arafat's remains.

Commemoration

Palestinians on Thursday commemorated the 17th anniversary of Arafat's death.

The Palestinian Fatah movement, whom Arafat founded and led until his death, had earlier announced a program of activities to mark the anniversary of his passing, including rallies and photo exhibitions.

Schools in the West Bank allocated the first classes of the day to honoring the late president and highlighting his role in the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation, as well as raising Palestine's voice in the international arena.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arafat's shrine in the presidential compound in Ramallah.

Arafat's long struggle

Arafat played a major part in the Palestinian movement that aims to build an independent Arab state on Palestinian lands, clashing with Israel.

He founded the Fatah movement in the late 1950s, taking over the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1969. The PLO had been created by the Arab League five years earlier to declare Palestinian independence.

The 1993 Oslo Accords that gave the Palestinians limited territorial sovereignty and partial control over civil affairs in the West Bank and Gaza won Arafat the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

He returned to Palestine that year after decades of struggle against the Israeli occupation from abroad. During the second Palestinian Intifada, which erupted in 2001 against the Israeli then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's incursion on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Israeli occupation forces imposed a blockade on Arafat's residence in the West Bank's city of Ramallah.

He only left his residence to go to the French Percy military hospital, where he died following a mysterious illness in 2004.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara