Paris ? French doctors won’t know what’s ailing Yasser Arafat before Monday, a hospital spokesman said Friday, hours after the Palestinian leader arrived here for treatment of a blood disorder that’s left him weak and unable to eat.

The Palestinian Authority’s delegate in France, Leila Shahid, said Arafat was conscious and talking as he was taken by helicopter from a French military base to a military hospital in a Paris suburb. Arafat wasn’t visible in television news footage of his arrival on the hospital roof, which showed a sheet-clad form being wheeled on a gurney surrounded by medical personnel.

Earlier, Arafat had blown kisses to supporters in Ramallah, West Bank, as he was lifted aboard a Jordanian army helicopter for a flight to Amman. There, he boarded a plane to Paris provided by the French government.

“He is now getting the proper care, in the proper place, in a proper hospital,” Shahid said. “His determination to defend his people will allow him to overcome this illness.”

Arafat was accompanied by his wife, Suha, who had flown to Ramallah on Thursday from Tunisia. Suha Arafat, who has a home in Paris, hadn’t seen her husband in three years.

It was the first time in more than two years that Arafat had left his headquarters in Ramallah, where he had been under virtual house arrest as Israel’s punishment for a wave of suicide bombings. Israeli officials agreed that he’ll be allowed to return to Ramallah once he recovers.

Eighteen Palestinian officials flew in with Arafat, including Mohammed Dahlan, the former security chief in Gaza, chief of staff Ramzi Khoury and top aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat blows a kiss as he leaves a Jordanian military helicopter upon arrival in Amman, Jordan. Arafat on Friday walked off a Jordanian helicopter to a French hospital plane that took him Paris for urgent treatment of a serious illness.

There was little new information on Arafat’s prognosis. Officials at the Hopital d’Instruction Armees de Percy declined to provide any information on the tests he would undergo or to identify the physicians who are treating him. The military hospital is renowned for treating blood disorders.

Arafat’s doctors in Ramallah said Thursday that the Palestinian leader’s platelet count was low, a reference to the particles in the blood that assist in clotting. The cause remained unknown despite a week in which doctors from throughout the Arab world visited Arafat in his compound.

A low platelet count could signal a wide variety of ailments, from leukemia to a bleeding ulcer.

“He has been suffering from an intense flu for the past two weeks,” Shahid said. “But obviously there is much more to it than that.”