Saeb Erekat
Saeb ErekatAmir Levy/Flash 90

Chief Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiator and Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)'s Executive Committee, Saeb Erekat, remains in critical condition, his family said on Friday.

The family told the PA’s official Wafa news agency that he is still connected to an ECMO device which supports his respiratory functions.

Erekat was rushed to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem on Sunday following a deterioration in his condition after he contracted COVID-19.

The high-ranking PA official is in a high-risk group after having previously contracted pulmonary fibrosis and having undergone a lung transplant in the United States in 2017.

Earlier this week, Erekat’s daughter said her father had undergone a bronchostomy to examine the condition of his respiratory system.

A frequent critic of Israel, Erekat has in the past accused Israel of “war crimes”, “massacres”, and “genocide”.

In 2013, Erekat 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 Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)