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According to an Asharq TV report, Chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat has been pronounced dead after receiving treatment for coronavirus at Hadassah Medical Center. No official confirmation has been released by the medical center. .....

Senior Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official Saeb Erekat on Friday set conditions for the Palestinian Authority (PA) renewing its ties with the United States, saying these ties can be resumed on condition that Washington commits itself to the peace process. "If the current US government wants to resume political contacts with the Palestinian leadership, it should announce that East Jerusalem is occupied and terminate the decision of annexing the city to Israel," said Erekat, secretary general of the PLO Executive Committee, in a statement quoted by the Xinhua news agency. He also asked the United States to declare the two-state...

A senior Palestinian Authority official condemned the results of Israel’s general election Tuesday, calling them a ‘vote against peace’. In a statement released Tuesday night, shortly after the polls closed in Israel, PA spokesman Saeb Erekat said the exit polls showed the vote had been in favor of the “status quo”. "Israelis have voted to preserve the status quo. They have said no to peace and yes to the occupation.” “They want us to live under a deeper apartheid system than that existed in the darkest hours of South African apartheid,” Erekat added. Earlier on Tuesday, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas...

Secretary-General Saeb Erekat of the Palestine Liberation Organization has called Israel's offsetting of half a billion shekels from the tax revenues it transfers to the Palestinian Authority "pure piracy". Writing on Twitter, the PA's chief negotiator explained, "This is not Israeli money to start with but our own funds. Once again Israeli politicians are campaigning based on who inflicts more suffering to our people. Once again the Israeli government, with the full support of the Trump administration, takes a step to further destabilize our region, strengthening extremists, collectively punishing..."

The chief Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiator Saeb Erekat claimed that PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas is willing to meet Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “anywhere in the world”. “I challenge Mr. Netanyahu [to meet Abbas], officially. He can choose any country, any country on earth. Moscow, Beijing, London, Berlin,” said Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, in an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. “He will meet him. This is a challenge, a declared challenge,” he added. The Israel- PA peace process has been frozen since 2014, when Abbas breached conditions of talks that were ongoing at the...

Palestinian Authority (PA) chief negotiator Saeb Erekat on Thursday evening accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of “victimizing the criminal” following the Prime Minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly. “Netanyahu’s speech is a combination of old and well-known talking points that conclude on victimizing the criminal and blaming the victim. His speech further exposes Israel’s systematic denial of our right to exist, to live in freedom and to celebrate our national identity,” said Erekat in a statement. “The reality on the ground in occupied Palestine is a manifestation of what Israel is: a colonial- apartheid state. Despite the oppression, racism...

Saeb Erekat, secretary of the PLO Executive Committee, on Tuesday announced that the "State of Palestine" plans to appeal to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against U.S. President Donald Trump's peace plan and his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In an interview with a Turkish news agency, Erekat said that U.S. policy is contrary to the decisions of international institutions, which regard East Jerusalem as territory that is "occupied" by Israel. Erekat further stated that the Palestinian Authority (PA) intends to turn once again to the UN Security Council with a request that it...

ever has the wisdom of the ancient rabbinical adage that showing mercy to the cruel would eventually result in dealing cruelly with the merciful been more apparent. The recent news that senior PLO official Saeb Erekat has asked to be placed on Israel’s waiting list for a lung transplant certainly raised a few eyebrows. A sworn enemy of Israel seeking succor from the very country that he has reviled and conspired against for so many years is undoubtedly ironic, but when one considers the actual insidious rhetoric Erekat has engaged in against Israel, a wry smile should be the very...

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary-General Saeb Erekat on Wednesday said he was “shocked” by the White House’s silence on Israel’s construction in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, and called on President Donald Trump’s administration to clarify its policy. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman announced the approval of 2,500 housing units in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, in order to accommodate the housing needs of the residents and to return their daily routine to normal. The announcement followed the approval earlier this week of 566 new housing units in the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Ramat...

Secretary of State John Kerry is planning to attend the preliminary foreign ministers' meeting that France is convening in advance of a French-sponsored Middle East peace conference, Haaretz reported Monday. The Palestine Liberation Organization's Saeb Erekat told the newspaper that Kerry has told Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas that he plans to attend the summit, to take place in Paris on May 30. At this stage, however, State Department officials will not confirm that Kerry will be attending the foreign ministers' meeting, and Washington has been reluctant to express support for the French initiative. For his part, Erekat told Haaretz...

An assistant to Saeb Erekat, a long-time senior official in the Palestinian Authority (PA), has been arrested by PA security forces on suspicion of spying on behalf of Israel. Erekat has acknowledged the facts of the case, which were published by media based in Ramallah. The suspect is accused of working for Israel for the past 20 years. He is believed to be in a Palestinian intelligence facility at present. Erekat served as the secretary-general for the PLO and headed the Palestinian negotiating team during peace talks with Israel. He often threatened Israel with ended the security agreement and worked...

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terror organization behind the Palestinian Authority (PA) holds the Israeli government "fully responsible" for the death of a toddler in an arson attack Friday in the Samaria Arab village of Duma, it announced Friday, in an incident the IDF has labeled "Jewish terror." "We hold the Israeli government fully responsible for the brutal assassination of the toddler Ali Saad Dawabsha," PLO official Saeb Erekat said in a statement, according to AFP. "This is a direct consequence of decades of impunity given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism." Four family members of the one-and-a-half year-old...

The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, on Sunday said that the PA will not agree to maintain the status quo and threatened that the PA will dismantle itself and “hand the keys” back to Israel. Speaking to Army Radio, Erekat referred to Israel’s decision to withhold the tax money it collects on behalf of the PA, which came in response to the PA’s request to join the International Criminal Court, and called it “collective punishment” and a “war crime”. “This is our money, Palestinian money that the Israeli government collects in exchange for 3%,” he said. “This is...

As expected, the Palestinian Authority (PA) reacted with outrage on Sunday to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s idea that if a Palestinian state is established in Judea and Samaria, Jews who wish to remain in that state should be allowed to do so. While Netanyahu did not publicly make this statement, a source in the Prime Minister's Office told reporters that Netanyahu believes there is no reason for the Palestinian state, if it is created, to be “mono-ethnic.” The source explained that the idea is a continuation of Netanyahu's statement in his speech at Davos, Switzerland, on Friday, in which he...

Amid reports that the United States is planning to present a framework agreement for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) within a month, the PA’s chief negotiator said on Sunday that the sides have not even had any direct talks for weeks. NRG/Maariv quoted Saeb Erekat as having said that the only talks in recent weeks have been taking place between the PA and the Americans and the Americans and the Israelis. Israeli and PA representatives have not been meeting recently, he stressed. "There have not been talks for some time," said Erekat. “The meetings currently taking place...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Friday the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. "I'm pleased to announce that we've reached an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming final status negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis," Kerry told reporters in Amman, Jordan, according to AFP. The top U.S. diplomat added that PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and Israeli negotiator Justice Minister Tzipi Livni would meet him in Washington "to begin initial talks within the next week or so." In his brief comments to the press, Kerry praised the courage of PA Chairman...

According to The Guardian, the Palestinian Authority has bound its survival to John Kerry's peace effort, warning that if the US Secretary of State's campaign to draw Israeli and PA Arab leaders back to the negotiating table fails, the West Bank could fall to radicalism and violence. The Palestinian chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said Israel's refusal to agree to even a basic agenda for peace threatened to scupper the Kerry initiative and the credibility of the Palestinian Authority's policy of non-violence, says The Guardian. In fact, MI submitted a recent report to the IDF with abundant evidence that the PA...

PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat vowed to terminate exploratory talks between Jerusalem and Ramallah after January 26 if Israel does not freeze construction in the disputed territories. "The Amman talks are intended to obtain a colony freeze and the use of the 1967 lines as a reference for any future talks, and will be given a chance to succeed until January 26," Erakat told AFP. His comments come after two rounds of meetings between the two sides' respective team leaders in Amman, Jordan under the auspices of the Hashemite monarchy and Quartet for Middle East Peace. The Quartet - comprised...

Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat on Thursday dismissed reports Ramallah had offered to drop its bid to join United Nations agencies in exchange for Israel unfreezing tax revenue transfers to the cash strapped PA. Israel froze tax revenues transferred to the PA under bilateral agreements -- amounting to some $100 million each month -- after it began a unilateral track proscribed by the Oslo Accords at the United Nations. Jerusalem's decision to freeze tax revenues came when UNESCO voted to induct the PA as a full member state despite a failed application for recognition of statehood in the Security...

Palestinian Authority officials said Thursday they will pursue their statehood bid at the United Nations despite Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's offer to use the pre-1967 lines as a basis for negotiations. Senior PA official Saeb Erekat characterized Netanyahu's concession as a publicity stunt intended to disuade the PA from its unilateral statehood bid outside the framework Oslo Accords that allow it to exist. "The Palestinian train is now heading towards New York," Erekat said during an Arab League committee meeting in Doha, Qatar late Wednesday. "Members of the committee reached a final agreement to request the full support for...