Saeb Erekat death: Palestinian chief negotiator dies after contracting coronavirus

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator and  international spokesperson for over three decades, has died after battling the coronavirus.

Mr Erekat, 65, who had been involved in almost every round of peace talks since the 1990s, had been in a critical condition after being transferred for treatment at an Israeli hospital in west Jerusalem three and a half weeks ago. 

His son Ali confirmed his death on Tuesday, as did the Hadassah hospital where he was being treated. The family said he had “transitioned peacefully” in hospital after complications from the coronavirus. 

“Saeb lived a life full of thought, love, forgiveness and peace and he will be dearly missed,” they said in a statement.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab  called Mr Erekat a “champion of dialogue and Palestinian rights” and sent his condolences to the family and “the Palestinian people at this difficult time”.  

Tony Blair hailed him as a “ legendary negotiator, aware of every intricacy and detail of the ‘two-state solution’ and a tireless advocate of it. ”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas  announced three days of mourning saying that Mr Erekat’s death was a “great loss for Palestine and our people” particularly "in light of these difficult circumstances facing the Palestinian cause."

He added that Mr Erekat "will be remembered as the righteous son of Palestine, who stood at the forefront defending the causes of his homeland and its people."  Mr Abbas said flags will be flown at half-mast for the mourning period. 

 Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO executive committee, said his passing was a “significant transition in Palestinian history and reality." 

“He was firmly committed to his people's rights, unwavering in his pursuit of a just peace, and totally undaunted in his quest for freedom and rights," she wrote on Twitter. 

Hamas, the militant group which runs Gaza and is a rival of Erekat’s Fatah party, also sent their condolences and praised his support for the Palestinian cause. 

There were also condolences sent from the Israeli side. 

Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister who negotiated with Erekat in the 2000s, said she was "saddened" by his death adding that he had texted her after falling ill, saying "I'm not finished with what I was born to do." 

Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli Cabinet minister and peace negotiator, called Mr Erekat's death "a big loss for those who believe in peace, both on the Palestinian side and the Israeli side."

Mr Erekat had had a lung transplant in 2017 and tested positive for Covid-19 at the start of October. 

On 9 October he  tweeted that he was struggling with “difficult symptoms”, on account of the lack of immunity he had from the lung transplant. At the time he had said “things are under control, thank God".

But his condition worsened and on the 18 October he was transferred from his West Bank home to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Bin Kerem Hospital.

Shortly afterwards his daughter Dalal said he was “fighting fiercely” against the disease. 

He was later anesthetised and put on a ventilator, according to a spokesperson for Hadassah hospital, who said that the team “shares the grief of [his] family, loved ones, friends and the Palestinian people".  

British and American educated, Mr Erekat was a veteran peace negotiator who was involved in almost every round of peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians stretching back three decades to the landmark Madrid conference in 1991.  

There he famously showed up draped in a black-and-white checked keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

Two years later he helped negotiate the landmark Oslo Accords in 1993. It created the Palestinian Authority and gave Palestinians limited self-governance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the first time since Israel occupied the territories in 1967.

Over the next few decades he was a passionate advocate of Palestinian statehood and a two-state solution becoming a constant presence in western media.  

He regularly defended the Palestinian leadership and blamed Israel for the failure to reach an agreement.

In recent years, Mr Erekat was often the public face of   war of words with the Trump administration over a US peace plan deemed the most pro-Israel vision of the region ever offered by Washington as it gave swathes of the occupied West Bank to Israel, leaving pockets of land as a Palestinian statelet with little soverignity. 

He remained an advocate of the negotiated creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel even after peace talks collapsed and the Palestinians cut ties with the US two years ago. 

Mr Erekat was born one of seven children in 1955 in Abu Dis, a town just outside Jerusalem and watched the Israelis capture the West Bank in the 1967 war.

In the 1970s he moved to San Francisco to attend university before completing a PhD in peace and conflict studies at the UK’s Bradford University.  

He was seen as a loyalist to the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and a close aide of current President  Abbas.

In the last three months of his life, the Palestinians faced a tectonic shift in regional priorities when two Gulf Arab states suddenly signed deals recognising Israel and Sudan nominally agreed a third. 

Asked a year before his death if there was a danger of the middle ground of Palestinian politics disappearing, Erekat told Reuters: "It's happening. These are my sons and daughters and grandchildren. And they look at me in the eye and they say, you did not deliver. Let the struggle change."

But he was adamant that in the long run, his vision would prevail. "The idea of the two-state solution will never die," he said. "There is no other option."

Agencies contributed to this report