ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani foreign office on Wednesday offered condolences from the government and people of Pakistan after the death of Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator who died in Jerusalem on Tuesday after contracting COVID-19.

Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said on October 8 he had contracted the coronavirus. Three years earlier he had undergone a lung transplant in the United States that left his immune system compromised.

He died following multiple organ failure after being hospitalized for three weeks in Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, a spokeswoman for the Israeli hospital told Reuters.

“The government and people of Pakistan offer deep condolences over the sad demise of the eminent Palestinian leader and negotiator, Dr. Saeb Erekat,” the foreign office said. “We offer our profound sympathies and heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family. We fully share the sorrow and grief of our Palestinian brethren and stand by them in this difficult time.”

The foreign office said Pakistan reaffirmed its “steadfast support for the Palestinian cause and remains committed to further deepen its fraternal ties with Palestine.”

Having sat down with Israeli and US leaders in the 1990s and 2000s, in recent years Erekat was the principal face of a war of words with President Donald Trump’s administration over a Middle East plan that envisaged leaving Israel in control of Jewish settlements and large parts of the occupied West Bank.

But after peace talks collapsed in 2014, he remained a firm backer of the negotiated creation of a future Palestinian state co-existing alongside Israel even if, in his own words, it took 50 years.

“The departure of the brother and the friend, the great fighter Saeb Erekat, represents a big loss for Palestine and for our people,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said. “We feel deep sorrow for losing him, especially at such difficult times the Palestinian cause is living through.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “I am grateful to have known Dr. Erekat and to have called him my friend. He was dedicated to the peaceful pursuit of justice, dignity and the legitimate rights of Palestinians to self-determination, sovereignty and statehood.”