Yasir Arafat's Body Is Exhumed for Poison Tests RAMALLAH, West Bank - The remains of Yasir Arafat were exhumed on Tuesday morning as part of a probe into whether the Palestinian leader was poisoned, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa. The area around Mr. Arafat's tomb in the West Bank city of Ramallah has been closed off for two weeks as laborers carefully removed the layers of stone and concrete and the exhumation took place far from the eyes of the public and the news media. Palestinian officials said that the grave would be reclosed with military ceremonies once the Russian, French and Swiss experts had taken samples from the remains. It was not clear how long it would be before the teams produced results of the investigation, though experts said it was likely to take months. The exhumation took place eight years after Mr. Arafat's death in a Paris hospital in 2004 at age of 75. It was the result of a television investigation into the cause of his death, which has long remained shrouded in contention and mystery. Mr. Arafat became ill in October 2004 after being confined under an Israeli Army siege and virtual house arrest for more than two years in the compound where he is buried. At the time, the area was seething with the violence of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, and the Israeli clampdown. He was flown by helicopter out of his headquarters and transferred to a French military hospital, where he died about two weeks later of unannounced causes. The hospital found no traces of poisons it had tested for. But in July, Mr. Arafat's widow, Suha, called for an exhumation in an interview with Al Jazeera, the Arabic television channel based in Qatar, after it reported that Mr. Arafat might have been poisoned with polonium, a radioactive element associated with K.G.B.-style assassination intrigue. Mrs. Arafat gave the broadcaster a copy of Mr. Arafat's medical records as well as personal effects, including clothing he had worn during the period just before he fell ill, his toothbrush and his trademark black-and-white checkered headdress. Mrs. Arafat requested that the French authorities open a murder inquiry. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and Mr. Arafat's successor, then said that Russian experts would help with the investigation.