Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City, Sept. 26, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Lucas Jackson.

JNS.org – A Palestinian man serving a 10-year sentence in the Palestinian Authority for selling land to Israeli Jews died in a hospital in Ramallah on Sunday.

The prisoner, who was identified by PA officials only by the initials M.E., was arrested by PA security forces in 2012, and was transferred from jail to the hospital two weeks ago, according to a report in The Jerusalem Post.

PA police spokesman Luay Zreikat did not specify the cause of death, according to the report, saying only that an investigation had been launched.

PA law prohibits the sale of land to Israelis, and there is also strong Palestinian cultural and religious pressure against doing so.

Last year, despite an Israeli law banning the PA from engaging in political and diplomatic activities in Jerusalem and other areas of sovereign Israel, a Fatah spokesperson said that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas was intensifying efforts to target eastern Jerusalem Arabs suspected of selling property to Israeli Jews.

Also last year, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman called for the immediate release of a Palestinian American imprisoned by the PA for engaging in a real estate transaction in eastern Jerusalem with Jews.