Late Peres |
Former Israeli president and elder statesman Shimon Peres, 93, died
in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, after being hospitalised for two weeks for
stroke.
An official announcement of Peres’s death was made at the hospital by
his son Chemi and son-in-law Rafi Walden, who said he died without
suffering and that he had donated his corneas for transplant.
“His life ended abruptly when he was still working on his great
passion, strengthening the country and striving for peace. His legacy
will remain with us all,” Walden, who was also Peres’s personal
physician, said.
Peres, an indefatigable campaigner for Middle East peace who jointly
won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, was hospitalised following a stroke
two weeks ago and died in Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement
expressing “deep personal grief at the passing of the beloved of the
nation.”
The Israeli cabinet was to convene for a special session of mourning at 10 a.m (07:00 GMT).
U.S. President Barack Obama in a condolence message to Israel said :
“A light has gone out, but the hope he gave us will burn forever”.
“There are few people who we share this world with who change the
course of human history, not just through their role in human events,
but because they expand our moral imagination and force us to expect
more of ourselves. My friend Shimon was one of those people,” Obama said
in a statement.
Media reports said Obama was planning to attend Peres’s funeral,
which Israeli media said was expected to be held on Friday, although
details of the ceremony were not made public.
Peres was part of almost every major development in Israel since the
country’s founding in 1948. In a career spanning nearly 70 years, he
served in a dozen cabinets and was twice a Labour prime minister.
He shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with the late former prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for
reaching an interim peace deal in 1993 which never turned into a lasting
treaty.
Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli ultra-nationalist who
opposed the interim accords, and it was Peres who took over as prime
minister after Rabin’s death.
Peres is widely seen as having gained nuclear capabilities for Israel
by procuring the secret Dimona reactor from France while defence
ministry director-general in the 1950s. And as defence minister oversaw
the 1976 Israeli rescue of hijacked Israelis at Entebbe Airport in
Uganda.
Peres held the largely ceremonial post of president from 2007-2014 and used the pulpit to continue to advocate peace.
Earlier in September, after a series of health scares including a mild heart attack, Peres received an artificial pacemaker.
*Reuters
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