GAZA, May 28, 2013 (WAFA) – Fatah leader and former minister and lawmaker Abdul Aziz Shaheen, better known as Abu Ali Shaheen, passed away Tuesday morning in a Gaza hospital of kidney failure. He was 80 years old.

Shaheen, who was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1996 and named as minister of supplies in the same year, was being hospitalized at Egyptian hospitals for the last year. However, when it became evident he will not recover, he was brought back to Gaza on Monday and admitted to Shifa hospital, where he died hours later.

Shaheen became a refugee after his family left their Ramla area village of Basheet in 1948 and fled to Gaza. He spent 15 years in Israeli prisons after which he was exiled. He returned home after the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993.

M.S./F.R.