Yasir Arafat's body reaches Cairo before tomorrow's funeral as Palestinian leadership shifts:

Hours after the death of Yasir Arafat this morning, the Palestinian leadership quickly filled its top posts. Palestinians contended with the loss of an erratic, iconic figure who led them from a splintered diaspora to the threshold of a state and left them trapped there, divided over the way ahead and in danger of fragmenting once again. Mr. Arafat died at 75 of an undisclosed illness in a Paris hospital, far from the torn land he longed to rule and barred by Israel from the city, Jerusalem, that he envisioned as his capital and burial place... In a prepared step, the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization replaced Mr. Arafat as chairman with Mahmoud Abbas, a pragmatic negotiator and, unlike Mr. Arafat, a critic of the armed uprising against Israel, the Intifada. But the ambiguity and uncertainty that are part of Mr. Arafat's conflicted legacy were on sharp display in scenes of grief, resignation and anger throughout the West Bank and Gaza. As burning tires and garbage cast a bitter pall over Ramallah and an Israeli surveillance drone buzzed overhead, some Palestinians spoke of a yearning for peace and accommodation with Israel. But masked, hatchet-wielding young men also invoked Mr. Arafat as they spray-painted fiery slogans in black on downtown walls.

The time is long overdue not just for new faces, but for new leadership on both sides.