Palestinian President's Wife Treated in Israel Hospital

W460

The wife of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been treated in an Israeli hospital, media reported Sunday, as Israel searched for teenagers believed to be held captive in Palestinian territory.

Israeli news site Ynet said Amina Abbas was admitted to the private Assuta hospital in Tel Aviv on Thursday.

She underwent surgery on her leg before being discharged on Sunday.

The hospital refused to comment on the report, Ynet said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had on Saturday held Abbas responsible for the safe return of three youths Israel said were abducted by the Islamist Hamas movement.

Gilad Shaer, 16, Naftali Frenkel, 16, and Eyal Ifrach, 19 disappeared on Thursday night, 10 days after the establishment of a new Palestinian government of technocrats pieced together by Abbas' Fatah movement and Hamas.

On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said "many indications point to Hamas' involvement" in their kidnapping.

Palestinian security in the West Bank was cooperating with Israeli forces in its efforts to find the youths, which included detaining 80 Palestinians overnight -- many of them Hamas members.

Abbas is not the only Palestinian leader to prefer Israeli medical facilities for family members. 

Earlier this month, the mother-in-law of former Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya was allowed into Israel from Gaza for cancer treatment.

In November, his granddaughter was taken to an Israeli hospital to be treated for an infection in her digestive tract.

Comments 5
Thumb kanaanljdid 15 June 2014, 21:02

The Palestinian president prefers going to Tel Aviv than to nearby Amman.

But some Lebanese are still more Palestinians than the Palestinian president and refuse normalization...

Missing phillipo 15 June 2014, 22:22

He must realise that Israeli medicine is more advanced than that in Jordan.

Thumb cedre 16 June 2014, 00:21

palestine is her country, why should she go abroad ?

Default-user-icon bennie (Guest) 16 June 2014, 06:01

Not to mention that a large number of Israeli medical personnel are Arabs. So much for the discrimination propaganda. Jewish, democratic and good for all it's citizens!

Missing phillipo 16 June 2014, 09:28

Cedre - may it's because the money that had been donated from abroad had found its way into the pockets of her husband and his cronies, instead of to the hospitals for the purchase up to date, state of the art medical equipment.