The remains of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were exhumed on Tuesday, eight years after his death, with experts set to test for signs that he was poisoned.

The process was carried out in secrecy, with Arafat's grave carefully shielded from the public eye and media kept far away, but Palestinian sources confirmed samples had been taken from the remains on Tuesday morning.

A Palestinian source told AFP on condition of anonymity that only a Palestinian doctor had been allowed to directly touch the remains and remove the samples, but that the process was conducted in front of Swiss, Russian and French experts.

"The samples were taken from Arafat's remains from inside the grave and the samples were then transferred to the mosque," the Palestinian source said, referring to a building adjacent to the Muqataa presidential complex in Ramallah, from which Arafat once ruled.

Tawfiq Tirawi, head of the Palestinian commission investigating Arafat's death, said in a statement that a "joint decision" had been taken by the various experts involved to collect the samples from within the grave, which was subsequently resealed.

The samples collected are to be tested for the radioactive substance polonium as part of a new investigation into whether Arafat was poisoned.

The probe was prompted by an investigation carried out by the Al-Jazeera news channel, which commissioned a Swiss lab to test personal effects belonging to the late leader that were given to them by his widow Suha.

The tests revealed the presence of polonium, and prompted calls for the exhumation of Arafat's remains for new testing.

Polonium was used to assassinate Russian ex-spy and fierce Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.

France opened a formal murder inquiry into Arafat's death in late August at Suha's request, and French judges in charge of the investigation arrived in Ramallah on Sunday to participate in the exhumation process.

Rumors and speculation have surrounded Arafat's death ever since the quick deterioration in his health before he died at the Percy military hospital near Paris in November 2004 at the age of 75.

Doctors were unable at the time to say what killed the Palestinians' first democratically-elected president, and an autopsy was never performed, at his widow's request.

But many Palestinians believed he was poisoned by Israel - a theory that gained ground in July following the Al-Jazeera report.

The samples taken Tuesday will be flown to laboratories in the three countries involved, with results expected within several months.

Israel has denied any involvement in Arafat's death and dismissed the probe as irrelevant.

Analysts said a probe of Arafat's remains would be of little help in solving any political problems between Israel and Palestine, but will put more pressure on the US and Israel to face the existing problems and restart the Middle East peace process.

"The test will prove nothing more than whether Arafat was poisoned to death or not, but it is not designed to point out the real plotter behind Arafat's death," said Li Weijian, a Middle East issues expert at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

"Nobody would jump up to claim responsibility for his death," Li added.

The Palestinian issue has been marginalized from world politics for years despite US President Barack Obama's promise to push for the progress of the peace process when he assumed his first tenure in 2008, Li said.

But the recent Israel-Hamas conflict, Palestine's bid for upgraded status in the UN, together with the exhumation of Arafat's grave, have brought the world's focus back to the core issue of the Middle East - the Palestine-Israel peace process, Li told the Global Times.

AFP contributed to this story