The announcement is likely to come after Taissir Dayut Tamimi, a senior Muslim cleric and close friend of Arafat, visits the leader at the Percy hospital outside Paris, said aides.
Arafat, 75, was rushed to Paris October 29 for treatment following an undisclosed ailment, and doctors Tuesday declared that he had slipped into a 'deeper coma' and suffered a brain hemorrhage.
But Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath told journalists in Paris Tuesday that though Arafat was on a respirator and intravenous nutrition, he was alive and his "brain remains sound."
Arafat, who has been under siege in his Ramallah headquarters by the Israeli army for over three years, had been suffering from "a variety of digestive tract ailments," Shaath said.
"So he had serious inflammations of the stomach and the intestines ... along with a period without nutrition, and this led to deterioration in the situation of the blood chemistry and the blood composition." This "chain reaction built over time to put him into coma and then into a deeper coma as he is today," he said.
"These instruments are there, of course. He's also attached to monitoring equipment. So, he has lots of equipment there but as I said, nobody has ever thought of shutting them off."
"We think having a religious person beside him in these difficult moments is relevant," Shaath said.
But "I want to rule out any question of euthanasia" he said. "People talk as if his life can be plugged in or plugged out. This is ridiculous. We Muslims do not allow euthanasia."
"He will live or die depending on his body's ability to resist and on the will of God," he said.
Shaath, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas met the doctors treating Arafat, his wife Suha and French President Jacques Chirac in Paris Tuesday before returning to the West Bank early Wednesday.
Earlier, Palestinian officials had been denied access to Arafat by Suha, who had accused senior aides of trying to 'bury Arafat alive.'
But Shaath said the differences with Suha had been sorted out, and that she had she had embraced delegation members during their two-hour visit to the hospital.
"Mrs Suha Arafat, the wife of the president has really had difficult times in the last few days with the danger in which her husband is in, but today she received us in the hospital, embraced all of us and allowed us to visit the president," he said.
"She is the wife of a great man, our leader, and is the mother of his only daughter. She will always be respected and protected by the Palestinian people."
Shaath refused to discuss plans for Arafat's burial, saying, "To us it is indecent to discuss someone's burial when he is very much alive and we pray for his recovery."
But other reports said Palestinian leaders have agreed to bury Arafat at Muqata, his headquarters in Ramallah, West Bank, which would then be converted into shrine.
This follows Israel's categorical rejection of a request to allow a burial in Jerusalem. Egypt has reportedly offered to host a funeral service in Cairo before the burial in Ramallah.
The central committee of Arafat's Fatah party and the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee were huddled in a meeting Wednesday to discuss these issues.
"Many issues related to Arafat's burial, if he dies, have to be discussed," Abbas Zaki, a Fatah central committee member was quoted as saying..
More from rediff