Senior Hamas official arrives in Israel for medical care

Nayef Rajoub, a senior member of Hamas and the brother of senior Palestinian Authority figure Jibril Rajoub, is currently recuperating in a private hospital in Tel Aviv, apparently after having undergone spine surgery. Rajoub, who is expected to stay in the Assuta Medical Center's Ramat Hahayal hospital for the next few days, has been assigned a security detail. The hospital said it could not confirm or deny the reports on Rajoub's hospitalization, citing privacy concerns.

Nayef Rajoub's brother, Jibril, is a senior Palestinian Authority figure and the head of Palestinian Football Association.

Nayef Rajoub, 57, has had multiple run-ins with Israeli security forces. He was first arrested in 1989 and was subsequently convicted of several terrorism-related charges, among them being a member of Hamas. In 1992, he was among the hundreds of Hamas terrorists who were deported to Lebanon after the organization killed an Israeli police officer. While in Lebanon, Rajoub began climbing the rungs of the organization until he attained a leadership position.

In 2006, he was elected to the Palestinian parliament as a Hamas candidate. Owing to his credentials as a theologian, Rajoub was immediately tapped to serve as religious affairs minister. Several months later, after Hamas captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in a cross-border raid, Israel put Rajoub in administrative detention along with other senior Hamas officials. He was released four years later, several months before a prisoner swap. Despite his repeated arrests, he maintained his clout within Hamas, in part because of his close ties with Ismail Haniyeh, who served as Hamas prime minister after the movement violently took over the Gaza Strip and formed a separate government in 2007.

In the summer of 2014, following the abduction (and murder) of three Jewish teens, he was arrested during an Israeli sweep in Judea and Samaria. He was released a year later.

Rajoub's medical history includes joint problems and other conditions. Family members say the Israel Prison Service is to blame for his failing health because it denied Rajoub proper medical care while he was behind bars, and as a result he has experienced excruciating pain.

This is not the first time Israeli hospitals have treated or operated on a high-ranking Palestinian officials. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' wife, Amina Abbas, underwent an operation in Assuta Medical Center in June 2014 and was there on the day the three teens were abducted. In February 2015, a Fatah official was treated at the Rabin Medical Center. In 2013, Haniyeh's granddaughter was also treated for a rare disease at the Schneider Children's Medical Center in Israel.

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