Palestinian leader Abbas still in hospital
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian president’s condition has seen a “clear improvement” after he was taken to hospital with a fever, an Arab lawmaker in Israel’s parliament with close ties to Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday.
Abbas was hospitalized on Sunday with a fever, just days after undergoing ear surgery. The 83-year-old leader has endured a series of recent health scares. It is the third time Abbas has been hospitalized in less than a week.
Ahmad Tibi, the lawmaker close to Abbas, told Israeli Army Radio that Abbas could be discharged as early as Tuesday. He did not elaborate on Abbas’ condition nor say why he thought Abbas was expected to be released.
The Palestine Liberation Organization, which is headed by Abbas, said on its Twitter account that Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat had visited the leader in hospital and quoted Erekat as saying: “The President is in good health.”
An aide to Erekat said that Abbas had talked and joked with him.
One Palestinian official in Ramallah said Abbas had gone back in because of complications after Tuesday’s ear surgery. Abbas had been running a high temperature, he said, “so doctors advised that he go back into hospital”.
However, a source at al-Istishari hospital said the president’s condition was unrelated to the ear operation.
“The president will stay in hospital until tomorrow. He is being given antibiotics to treat an inflammation in the chest,” said the hospital source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he or she was not authorized to speak with the media.
Abbas, a heavy smoker, was hospitalized in the United States for medical checks in February during a trip to address the United Nations Security Council.
Abbas, who insists he is fine, has refused to designate a successor.
He became Palestinian president after the death in 2004 of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. He pursued US-led peace talks with Israel but the negotiations broke down in 2014.
He is also chairman of the executive committee of the PLO, a position to which he was re-elected unopposed on May 4.
Abbas’ hospitalization has coincided with an escalation in Israeli-Palestinian tensions after Israeli troops shot dead dozens of Palestinian protesters on the Gaza border on May 14 as the new US embassy opened in Jerusalem.
The Gaza Strip is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, a bitter political rival of Abbas’s secular Fatah movement.