Full Name=Yasser Arafat; Profession=Palestinian political leader, civil engineer, founder and leader of Fatah, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), president of the Palestinian National Authority, Nobel Peace Prize laureate; Nationality=Palestinian; Born=24 August 1929; Birthplace=Cairo, Egypt, to Palestinian parents; Generation=Silent Generation (born within 1928–1945 cohort); Chinese Zodiac=Snake, Earth element (Earth Snake); Zodiac Sign=Virgo; Age in 2026=97 (would be 97 years old if still alive, based on 1929 birth year); Marital Status=Married (widowed); married to Suha Tawil (Suha Arafat) from the early 1990s until his death in 2004; Children=One daughter, Zahwa Arafat, born 1995; Cause of Death=Officially a massive haemorrhagic cerebrovascular accident (hemorrhagic stroke) following a blood disorder, with medical records and later investigations debating the underlying cause and some forensic reports suggesting possible polonium-210 poisoning, while French prosecutors ultimately concluded natural causes; Description=Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, better known as Yasser Arafat or by his nom de guerre Abu Ammar, rose from student activist and civil engineer to become the pre-eminent symbol of the Palestinian national movement, co-founding the guerrilla organization Fatah in the 1950s, leading it to dominance within the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969 onward, and transforming the PLO from a loose umbrella of exile groups into a globally recognized representative of the Palestinian people; as PLO chairman and later president of the Palestinian Authority, he navigated decades of armed struggle, regional wars, diplomatic isolation, and complex negotiations with Israel, steering the movement toward recognition of Israel and a two-state framework through milestones such as his 1974 speech to the United Nations, the 1988 declaration recognizing Israel and renouncing terrorism, and the 1993 Oslo Accords, for which he shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres; his long tenure made him one of the most controversial figures in modern Middle Eastern history, revered by many Palestinians and supporters as a freedom fighter and father of the nation, blamed by critics for corruption, authoritarianism, and the failures of the peace process, and remembered worldwide as a charismatic yet enigmatic leader whose trademark keffiyeh and rhetoric about carrying both an olive branch and a gun encapsulated the tension between armed resistance and diplomatic compromise at the heart of the Palestinian struggle.