CLAMART, France - Yasser Arafat's wife today accused his top lieutenants of seeking to grab control from her ailing husband, nearly torpedoing a visit by three top Palestinian officials in the first sign of an open power struggle while Arafat clings to life.

In a screaming telephone call from Arafat's hospital bedside, Suha Arafat told Al-Jazeera television that Arafat's aides were conspiring to usurp her husband's four-decade-long role as Palestinian leader.

"Let it be known to the honest Palestinian people that a bunch of those who want to inherit are coming to Paris," she shouted in Arabic in her first public comments since Arafat left his West Bank compound for France.

"I tell you they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," she continued, using Arafat's nom de guerre. "He is all right and he is going home."

In response, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath and Mahmoud Abbas, the former prime minister and deputy chairman of Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, briefly canceled a planned trip to Paris today to consult with Arafat's doctors and French officials. Shaath later said the trip was back on.

A senior aide to Arafat, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, originally said the three were angry with Arafat's wife and didn't want to travel to Paris.

"What came from Suha doesn't represent our people," he said. "If the president were to hear that, he would reject it completely."

He said Mrs. Arafat "wanted to destroy the Palestinian leadership's decision and to be the lone decision-maker."

Mrs. Arafat said she was calling from Arafat's bedside at the French military hospital, where the 75-year-old leader has been in intensive care since Wednesday.