The Palestinians bid farewell on Thursday to Ahmed Qorei (Abu Alaa), 85, who served as the first speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The funeral was held at the presidential headquarters in Ramallah where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas laid a wreath of flowers on his coffin. "Abu Al Alaa spent his life as a solid fighter defending Palestine, its cause, its people, and its independent national decision," Abbas said. The body was taken to Abu Alaa’s hometown of Abu Dis, near East Jerusalem, to be buried there. Qorei was elected speaker of parliament after the first Palestinian legislative elections in 1996. He retained that role until 2003 when he was named prime minister. Abu Alaa was one of the chief negotiators of the 1990s deals with Israel that resulted in the Oslo Accords. Qorei was a member of the Fatah Central Committee and the Palestine Liberation Organization's Central Council. He was suggested as a successor to the late Yasser Arafat.  Sources close to Qorei's family said he recently suffered from infections that required hospital treatment. He received intravenous antibiotics, but his condition deteriorated overnight and he passed away.