OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Saeb Erekat, a veteran chief negotiator for the Palestinian cause, died Tuesday of coronavirus complications at the age of 65, in a death mourned as a "great loss" for his people. Erekat was a long-time architect of plans to end the conflict with Israel through the creation of an independent Palestinian state, a goal he would not live to see achieved. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called the passing of "a brother and friend .. a great loss for Palestine and our people" and declared three days of mourning for Erekat, the Palestine Liberation Organisation's secretary general. Erekat, a lung transplant recipient who suffered from pulmonary fibrosis, was admitted last month to the intensive care unit of Israel's Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in west Jerusalem. Given his prior respiratory conditions, his prognosis for recovery had been dim.
"Unfortunately, his condition didn't improve and remained critical, and he passed away amidst multiple system failure," Hadassah said in a statement.
Erekat was born in Jerusalem in 1955, but later lived in Jericho in the occupied West Bank.
He grew up in the shadow of Israel's crushing victory over its Arab neighbours in the Six-Day War of 1967, and dedicated much of his life to seeking a resolution to the conflict.
But he was forced to watch as the prospects for the two-state solution he longed for grew increasingly remote, undermined by Israeli settlement expansion, sporadic violence and Palestinian divisions.
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