Ramallah (QNN)- A veteran peace negotiator Saeb Erekat died Tuesday from the coronavirus without fulfilling his dream of living in an independent state of Palestine. Officials said Erekat, 65, succumbed to COVID-19 at the Israeli hospital of Hadassah Ein Kerem in Jerusalem. After being transferred to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, doctors said his condition deteriorated to become critical, and he was placed on a ventilator. On Tuesday one of his senior aides announced that he had died. Born on April 28, 1955, in the town of Abu Dis in east Jerusalem, Erekat left the Palestinian territories at the age of 17 to the United States, where he lived with his father. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of San Francisco in 1977 and a master’s degree in international relations from the same university two years later. In 1982, Erekat obtained his Ph.D. in Peace Studies from the British University of Bradford. After this, he acquired American citizenship. As the chief negotiator for the PLO, he was one of the main authors of key parts of the Oslo peace accords of the 1990s.