DEATHS

HATEM HUSSEINI

Fatah Official

Hatem Husseini, a leader in Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization who was president of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem and a member of the Palestine National Council, the Palestinian parliament in exile, died of cancer Dec. 27 in his native Jerusalem.

He returned to the city in recent years after spending most of his life abroad, serving at the offices of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington and New York and teaching political science at U.S. universities.

PIERRE DREYFUS

Renault President

Pierre Dreyfus, 87, a former French civil servant who built state-owned Renault into one of Europe's leading automakers before retiring in 1975, died Dec. 25 at his home in Paris. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Mr. Dreyfus, who was minister of industry under President Francois Mitterrand in 1981 and later an adviser to the president, had trained as a lawyer. He joined the civil service and became head of a state-owned coal mine in 1947. He moved to Renault in 1955. During the next 20 years, he expanded the company's output of 175,000 cars a year to 1.3 million and turned it into France's main industrial exporter.

He also made Renault a model state company, improving working conditions and wages. He extended annual vacations from two weeks to three and then four. He advocated working with unions whenever possible and earned Renault a reputation for enlightened labor practices.

SYLVA KOSCINA

Actress

Sylva Koscina, 61, a Yugoslav-born actress who starred in Italian and Hollywood films in the 1960s, died Dec. 26 at a hospital in Rome. She had a heart ailment.

She began her film career in Italy in 1955 with "The Railroad Man." Her best-known films include director Federico Fellini's "Juliet of the Spirits" (1965) and "A Lovely Way to Die" (1968), in which she starred opposite Kirk Douglas.