First posted August 14 2008
Landing in the presence of mourners numbered in their thousands around the streets of Ramallah, a helicopter carrying the body of the Arab world’s best loved poet Mahmoud Darwish arrives for the first state funeral to take place in the West Bank capital since Yasser Arafat’s in 2004. His coffin, mantled in the Palestinian flag and olive branches, was soon driven through streets overlooked by gatherers on a hilltop that will shortly be named after him, near the Ramallah Cultural Palace. (continue)
