AMMAN, Jan 26: George Habash, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), died on Saturday in Amman at the age of 82, Jordanian and Palestinian officials said.
The Palestinian ambassador to Jordan, Atallah Khairy, said Habash was hospitalised in Amman 10 days ago with heart problems and died on Saturday shortly after 8 pm (1800 GMT).
Palestine President Mahmud Abbas paid tribute to the “historic leader” and ordered flags to be flown at half-mast for three days in the Palestinian territories in mourning for his death.
“The death of this historic leader is a great loss for the Palestinian cause and for the Palestinian people for whom he fought for 60 years,” Abbas said in a statement.
Habash stepped down as head of the PFLP in July 2000 after having led the faction which is a key component of the Palestine Liberation Organisation for more than 30 years.
He had been living in Jordan, the homeland of his wife, after an illness forced his retirement from political life.
The PFLP under Habash had hijacked airliners to Jordan and he called for the overthrow of Jordan’s monarchy in 1970 before the Black September clashes in which the Jordanian army expelled the PLO from the kingdom.
Habash was born in 1925 in the Palestinian town of Lydda, now in Israel and known as Lod, the son of a Greek Orthodox merchant family.
A charismatic, Habash was a fierce opponent of the policy of compromise of PLO chief Arafat, ruling out a normalisation of ties with the Jewish state and accusing him of making too many concessions.
He opposed Arafat’s 1993 Oslo autonomy deal and refused to return to the Palestinian territories after the launch of autonomy in 1994, while insisting on the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland.
He graduated from the American University of Beirut in 1951 as a paediatrician, and the next year he founded the Arab Nationalist Movement.—AFP
