Top Palestinian Official Receiving COVID-19 Treatment In Israeli Hospital

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Saeb Erekat, Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and chief Palestinian negotiator, talks to reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah in March. Erekat is being treated in a Jerusalem hospital after contracting COVID-19.

Abbas Momani/AFP via Getty Images

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The emergency medicine center of Hadassah University Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem, where senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat is being treated, in a photograph taken on Monday.

Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images

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The emergency medicine center of Hadassah University Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem, where senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat is being treated, in a photograph taken on Monday.

Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images

Erekat’s hospitalization in Israel has sparked controversy among both Israelis and Palestinians. Israel’s United Nations ambassador, Gilad Erdan, accused Erekat of «hypocrisy for accepting Israeli treatment while supporting calls to boycott Israel. Some Israeli lawmakers said Hamas should release Israeli captives held in Gaza in exchange for Erekat’s treatment. Palestinians have protested Erekat’s treatment in Israel while the Palestinian Authority continues to suspend ties with Israel and block many Palestinian patient referrals to Israeli hospitals.

«I wish you would care about the health of the people the way you care about yourselves, wrote one Palestinian named Aseel Jadallah on the Palestinian Health Ministry’s Facebook page.

In February, the Palestinian Authority, which governs the occupied West Bank, cut diplomatic ties with Israel over the Trump administration’s Mideast proposal, which envisioned Israel annexing about 30% of the West Bank.

Erekat has been involved in most of the major Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations, as the Palestinians’ chief peace negotiator since 1995. He is a top political figure, serving as secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee.