Veteran Palestinian negotiator dies of Covid
▶ PLO secretary general had been placed in a coma as part of his treatment for coronavirus
Veteran Palestinian negotiator and architect of the Oslo peace accords Saeb Erekat died in an Israeli hospital yesterday after developing Covid-19.
The 65- year- old secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation died three weeks after being transferred to Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital, where he was immediately put on a ventilator.
“Unfortunately, his condition did not improve and remained critical, and he passed away following multi- organ failure,” hospital spokeswoman Hadar Elboim told The National.
“The Hadassah team extends its condolences to his family, admirers, friends and the Palestinian people,” she said.
Treating Erekat was particularly challenging as he underwent a lung transplant in 2017, doctors said.
Erekat, who was central to peace talks over the past three decades, was described as a “great fighter” by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
“Our people will remember the deceased, Dr Saeb Erekat, the son of Palestine, who stood at the forefront, defending the causes of his homeland and his people in the fields of the national struggle and in the international arena,” Mr Abbas said.
Three days of mourning were declared by the Palestinian government, with flags to be flown at half-staff.
Erekat participated in critical peace negotiations with Israel, including the 1991 Madrid conference, the Oslo talks of the 1990s and the Camp David summit in 2000 hosted by the US president at the time, Bill Clinton.
Erekat was a vocal critic of
Israeli settlement- building on occupied land and pushed for a two- state solution that would include a viable, independent Palestinian state.
Such aspirations seemed to be increasingly out of reach towards the end of Erekat’s life, with Palestinian- Israeli talks stalled and Palestinians regarding US government policy under President Donald Trump as being biased in Israel’s favour.
“Our right to self-determination has been systematically denied by Israel, now with the support of the US,” Erekat told
The National earlier this year.
The Trump administration took a series of controversial steps that broke with decades of international consensus, including recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US embassy to the city.
“It’s our inalienable, sacred, long overdue and internationally recognised right to be free,” said Erekat, who was born in Jerusalem and lived in the West Bank city of Jericho.
Erekat came across as affable and self-deprecating in the Palestine Papers, leaked documents – mainly from his own office – that chronicled the workings of the negotiations from the 1990s until 2010.
But he was also a central figure in the ageing leadership that many Palestinians accused of nepotism and of failing to realise their aspirations.
Erekat was nonetheless admired by many at home and abroad, with tributes pouring in following his death including one from former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni.
“Saeb dedicated his life to his people,” she wrote on Twitter. “Being sick, he texted me: ‘I’m not finished with what I was born to do’.”
Ayman Odeh, of the Arab-led Joint List in the Israeli parliament, said Erekat would “not live to see his people freed from the chains of the occupation”.
“But generations of Palestinians will remember him as one of the giants who dedicated his life for their independence.”