Palestinian refugees in southern Lebanon Saturday said prayers for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who is receiving medical treatment in France.

Prayers, led by Palestinian clerics, were held outdoors in al-Rashidiyeh refugee camp near the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre.

After prayers asking for Arafat's recovery, the Fatah leader in Lebanon, Sultan Abul Enain, thanked French President Jacques Chirac for his historic humanitarian initiative by taking the Palestinian leader to a French defense ministry hospital in Paris.

He said France was a great nation that respects and appreciates the Palestinian people and their just cause, and France is the mother of freedoms and revolutions in the world.

Abul Enain lashed out at U.S. President George Bush, saying, We heard that the great Bush asked for the well-being of Arafat's health. ... He (Bush) is a killer that kills and then asks for saving the victim.

Daily prayers are due to be said in each Palestinian camp in Lebanon, while a solidarity demonstration is to be held Sunday to call for solidifying national unity in Lebanon and Palestine to overcome the phase after Arafat's illness.