Daily US Times: Du Wei, China’s ambassador to Israel, was found dead inside his official residence in Herzliya — to the north of Tel Aviv on Sunday morning. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman confirmed it.
Du Wei was 57 years old and death is not being treated as suspicious. The spokeswoman said police are outside the ambassador’s residence as part of standard procedure.
The death of Du Wei comes less than a week after the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo openly criticized China’s actions during the coronavirus pandemic while visiting Jerusalem, as well as calling on Israeli leaders to stop signing major communications and infrastructure deals with Chinese companies.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing and the Chinese embassy in Israel did not make any comment so far on the matter.
According to the embassy’s webpage, ambassador Du Wei assumed his current role in Israel in February 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic was sweeping across the globe.
In a message published on the embassy’s website just after his appointment as ambassador, Mr. Du Wei praised the relations between “the second-largest economy in the world and Israel the start-up nation”.
In the mid-March, he wrote in an article in the Jerusalem Post that he immediately had to enter two weeks of mandatory self-quarantine on his arrival. He was married with one son.
Israel’s Channel 12 TV, quoting unnamed medical sources, said initial indications were that Mr Du had died in his sleep of natural causes.
China’s ambassador to Israel found dead in Herzliya home
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