Saeb Erekat, veteran Palestinian peace negotiator, dies at 65

Key PLO figure and advocate for two-state solution had been diagnosed with coronavirus

Oliver Holmes Jerusalem correspondent
Tue 10 Nov 2020 10.54 GMT

Saeb Erekat, the veteran Palestinian peace negotiator and one of the most high-profile figures in its leadership since the early 1990s, has died after contracting coronavirus.

Erekat, a lawmaker from Jericho in the occupied West Bank, was a senior adviser to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and also worked for Abbas’s predecessor, Yasser Arafat. He served as the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Unrelenting in his indignation against Israeli control over Palestinian life, the US-educated former journalist and academic was well-known to three decades of diplomatic and media circles for his condemnation of what he eventually described as apartheid, delivering his criticism in his trademark staccato voice.

The 65-year-old underwent a lung transplant in the US in 2017 and had been in poor health since. On 8 October, he announced he had been diagnosed with Covid-19 and later said he was experiencing “difficult symptoms”.

After being transferred to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, doctors said his condition deteriorated to become critical, and he was placed on a ventilator. On Tuesday one of his senior aides announced that he had died.

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