Special to WorldTribune.com

A senior leader of Hamas is recuperating in an Israeli hospital after undergoing spinal surgery, a report said.

Nayef Rajoub, a top member of the terror group and brother of senior Palestinian Authority (PA) figure Jibril Rajoub, was operated on at Assuta Medical Center’s Ramat Hahayal hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel Hayom reported.

Israeli hospitals have treated high-ranking Palestinian officials in the past, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s wife, Amina Abbas. In February 2015, a Fatah official was treated at the Rabin Medical Center. In 2013, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s granddaughter was treated for a rare disease at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Israel.

Rajoub has been on Israel’s radar since he was first arrested in 1989 and subsequently convicted of several terrorism-related charges. In 1992, he was among the hundreds of Hamas terrorists who were deported to Lebanon after the organization killed an Israeli police officer.

Rajoub used his time in Lebanon to ascend to a leadership position within the organization and in 2006 he was elected to the Palestinian parliament as a Hamas candidate and named religious affairs minister.

After Hamas captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid, Israel placed Rajoub in administrative detention along with other senior Hamas officials. He was released four years later.

Last summer, following Hamas’s abduction and murder of three Jewish teens, Rajoub was arrested during an Israeli sweep in Judea and Samaria. He was released earlier this year.

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