By the time he was 17, Arafat was an active supporter of the Palestinian cause. He reportedly slipped into Palestine to fight with the Arabs in the war that broke out with the Jews in 1947, but was forced to return to Cairo after the establishment of Israel in 1948.
In the early 1950s, after earning an engineering degree from the University of Cairo, he was reportedly commissioned by the Egyptian Army, and fought for Egypt during the Suez crisis and the subsequent Arab-Israel war.
After leaving the army, Arafat moved to work in Kuwait, where he was among the founders of a movement that became known as Al Fatah, an underground terrorist organisation dedicated to reclaiming Palestine for the Palestinians.
Arafat makes the victory sign from the PLO HQ in Amman, Jordan, August 6, 1970. Inset: Arafat pays tribute to three PLO leaders killed by Israel in Beirut, 1973.
Photograph: /AFP/Getty Images
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