In a sombre memorial ceremony, a Palestinian military honor guard yesterday laid a wreath over the coffin of veteran Palestinian official Saeb Erekat, who died after contracting COVID-19.
Erekat, 65, who held the post of secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, served Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, as chief negotiator over decades of talks with Israel.
Abbas, who praised Erekat as a “great fighter” for his people, hosted the ceremony at his presidential compound in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Photo: Reuters
Abbas and other senior officials watched as a procession of Palestinian soldiers wearing masks carried the coffin — which was draped in a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh, the black-and-white checkered scarf that was often worn by Arafat — through a plaza in the compound before the laying of the wreath.
Erekat died on Tuesday after announcing on Oct. 8 that he had contracted COVID-19.
A lung transplant three years ago left his immune system compromised, and his condition deteriorated. He was taken to an Israeli hospital in Jerusalem three weeks ago and was pronounced dead on Tuesday after multiple organ failure.
Photo: Reuters
Following the somber military ceremony attended by top officials of the Palestinian Authority, Erekat’s body was transported to his home city of Jericho, where he was buried.
Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad al-Maliki told Palestine TV that Erekat was “an icon of the Palestinian cause.”
“He was a diplomat in every sense of the word,” Maliki said.
Erekat was part of nearly every major peace negotiation with Israel and was respected by many in the Jewish state for his commitment to a peaceful, two-state solution.
Neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, nor Israeli President Reuven Rivlin offered public condolences following his death.
In his later years, Erekat watched despairingly as the two-state solution he had long championed faced mounting obstacles. Those included the collapse of peace partners on the Israeli left as the country lurched to the right under Netanyahu and persistent Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.
The floundering peace process was further set back by the election of US President Donald Trump, reviled by Palestinians for his bias toward Israel.
Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided capital,” an existential blow to the Palestinians, who claim the eastern part of the city as the capital of their future state.
Trump also broke with decades of US practice by not criticizing Jewish settlement building in the West Bank.
Trump’s controversial Middle East plan, drafted with no Palestinian input, was categorically rejected by Ramallah.
However, Palestinian analyst Nour Odeh said that up to his death Erekat “was always hopeful, always believed [peace] is achievable.”
“He was tireless, he was stubborn... He believed that this conflict will end and that this occupation will end,” she said.
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