Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Haidar Abdel Shafi, a founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a peace negotiator, died at 88, his son said.
Abdel Shafi died early today from stomach cancer, Khaled Abdel Shafi said in a telephone interview from Gaza. He will be buried later today in a cemetery in Gaza City, his son said.
The independent politician was described by Hamas in an e- mailed statement as ``one of the most important figures in Palestinian history.'' The Islamic militant group has run the Gaza Strip since seizing control of the territory in June and ending a partnership with the rival Fatah faction. Fatah also mourned Abdel Shafi, calling him ``a prominent Palestinian figure,'' according to an e-mailed statement.
Abdel Shafi, born in Gaza in 1919, studied medicine in Egypt and was one of the first Palestinian physicians to work in Gaza. He was the head of a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation to the 1991 Madrid peace conference, which resulted in multilateral talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
``Dr. Abdel Shafi will remain a beacon of inspiration for us in our struggle for freedom, democracy and independence for our people,'' Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian National Initiative, a movement Abdel Shafi founded in 2002, said in an e- mailed statement.
Abdel Shafi participated in negotiations that followed the Madrid meeting, though he wasn't part of the secret channel with Israel that led to the Oslo peace accords in 1993. He objected to the Oslo agreement, saying it didn't do enough to prevent the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories the Palestinians seek for their independent state.
`Share Hope'
``In the name of the Palestinian people, we wish to directly address the Israeli people with whom we have had a prolonged exchange of pain: Let us share hope instead,'' Abdel Shafi said in his opening remarks in Madrid, according to a transcript on the Israeli Foreign Ministry Web site. ``We are willing to live side by side on the land and the promise of the future.''
Back in Gaza, he cautioned against excess optimism, telling Palestinians: ``The road before us is still long. You must be patient and united.''
Elected to the first Palestinian parliament in 1996, Abdel Shafi headed the legislative council's political committee until he resigned two years later to protest a lack of democracy.
Calling for the participation of all Palestinian factions in a government then controlled by Yasser Arafat, he described the parliament as ``a circus'' and its members ``dancing apes.''
After the second intifada, or uprising, in 2000, Abdel Shafi said Palestinians should focus on fighting the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.
Earlier this year, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, honored Abdel Shafi for his work as chairman of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society from 1972 to 2005.
Abdel Shafi is survived by his wife, four children and seven grandchildren
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