Senior PA negotiator and PLO leader Saeb Erekat is in serious, stable condition at Israeli hospital after being diagnosed with COVID.
Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Saeb Erekat is in serious condition Sunday, after being admitted to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem to treat his coronavirus infection.
Hospital officials say that the 65-year-old PLO chief negotiator is in serious but stable condition at the hospital’s intensive care unit.
“Following his contraction of Covid-19, and due to the chronic health problems he faces in the respiratory system, Dr Erekat’s condition now requires medical attention in a hospital,” the hospital said in a statement Sunday evening. “He arrived in serious condition and needed support and high doses of oxygen.”
“Mr. Erekat is receiving the highest level of treatment, like all other serious coronavirus patients at Hadassah, and the team is doing everything it can for his health,” said Hadassah director-general Prof. Zev Rothstein. “At Hadassah, we treat every patient as if he or she were our only patient.”
Earlier on Sunday, Erekat was rushed to Hadassah Ein Kerem from the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Jericho, following a deterioration in his condition.
Erekat is in a high risk group after having previously contracted pulmonary fibrosis and even underwent a lung transplant in the United States in 2017.
A frequent critic of Israel, Erekat has in the past accused Israel of “war crimes”, “massacres”, and “genocide”.
Erekat has also repeatedly accused Israel of applying a “policy of apartheid” in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.
Despite his accusations of Israeli “genocide”, this is not the first time the senior PA official has sought treatment at an Israeli hospital.
In 2017, Erekat was spotted at Petah Tikva’s Beilinson Medical Center.
(Arutz 7).