The BBC’s Barbara Plett weeps in sympathy with the father of modern Arab terrorism: Yasser Arafat’s unrelenting journey.

Foreign journalists seemed much more excited about Mr Arafat’s fate than anyone in Ramallah.

We hovered around the gate to his compound, swarming around the Palestinian officials who drove by, poking our microphones through their dark, half-open windows.

But where were the people, I wondered, the mass demonstrations of solidarity, the frantic expressions of concern?

Was this another story we Western journalists were getting wrong, bombarding the world with news of what we think is an historic event, while the locals get on with their lives?

Yet when the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry… without warning.

In quieter moments since I have asked myself, why the sudden surge of emotion?