Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption World leaders gather for Shimon Peres state funeral

World leaders have hailed the vision of the late Israeli leader, Shimon Peres, as he was laid to rest days after his death at the age of 93.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described him as "a great man of the world", as he led the eulogies.

US President Barack Obama said the presence of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the funeral was a reminder of the "unfinished business of peace".

Mr Abbas was among dozens of foreign dignitaries attending in Jerusalem.

Security was intensified ahead of the ceremony, with several people arrested.

Delivering an emotional address, Mr Netanyahu said that while Israel and the world grieved for Mr Peres there was hope in his legacy.

"Shimon lived a life of purpose," he told thousands gathered at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery.

"He soared to incredible heights. He swept so many with his vision and his hope. He was a great man of Israel.

"He was a great man of the world."

'One of the giants'

Former US President Bill Clinton, who helped negotiate the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, said he was Israel's "biggest dreamer".

"He imagined all the things the rest of us could do. He started life as Israel's brightest student, became its best teacher and ended up its biggest dreamer.''

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Video shows the moment the Israeli and Palestinian leaders shake hands

US President Barack Obama closed the eulogies, comparing Mr Peres to "some of the other giants of the 20th Century that I've had the honour to meet, like Nelson Mandela and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth".

Mr Peres, he said, believed in equality for Palestinians.

"Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, he insisted that as human beings Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and must therefore be equal in self determination."

Farewell to founding generation - by Kevin Connolly, BBC News

On Mount Herzl where evergreen trees shaded the dusty walkways from the late-summer sunshine, an extraordinary congregation assembled to say goodbye to Shimon Peres.

You could have worked out that it was his funeral from the guest list alone - Prince Charles and Barack Obama, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. It's hard to imagine any other leader being mourned in quite the same way.

Israel said goodbye to the last of its founding generation and global diplomacy mourned a lost star, but the children of Shimon Peres grieved a father and spoke of him with elegance and simplicity.

And Mr Peres remained in command to the end, choosing his own funeral music. It was a setting of an old prayer he remembered his grandfather singing to him in the pre-war Poland of the 1920s.

Elegant and mournful, it played at the end of the old president's long journey, as it had played at the start.

Mixed reaction to Peres' legacy in world media

Long legacy of Israel's elder statesman

Obituary: Shimon Peres, Israeli founding father

Before the ceremony began, Mr Abbas was seen shaking hands and speaking briefly with Mr Netanyahu. The last substantial public meeting between the two leaders was in 2010, with peace efforts completely suspended since April 2014.

Hamas, the hardline Palestinian group that runs Gaza, condemned Mr Abbas's decision to attend the ceremony.

Jordan and Egypt - the only two Arab countries to have signed peace deals with Israel - both sent official representatives to the ceremony.

Mr Abbas, along with Mr Peres, was one of those who signed the Oslo peace accords in 1993, in the presence of Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.

Mr Peres, Mr Rabin and Mr Arafat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 "for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East". All three have now died.

Image copyright AP Image caption Taken months after the Oslo Agreement was signed, this photograph shows Shimon Peres, left, with Mahmoud Abbas, centre, and Egypt's then Foreign Minister Amr Moussa

Mr Peres' reputation in the region is complicated by the 1996 shelling of Qana in southern Lebanon that killed more than 100 people sheltering in a UN compound.

It took place when, as prime minister, he ordered an offensive against a wave of rocket fire by the militant Hezbollah movement.

He later said it was a "bitter surprise" to find that several hundred people were in the camp at the time.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Leaders from around the world paid their respects, including Barack Obama

Image copyright EPA Image caption Former US President Bill Clinton helped usher in the Oslo peace accords which won a Nobel Peace Prize for Mr Peres

Image copyright Reuters Image caption The UK's Prince Charles and French President Francois Hollande also bade their farewells

The funeral was the largest such event in Israel since the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish nationalist in 1995.

Mr Peres suffered a stroke two weeks ago and died on Wednesday in a hospital near Tel Aviv.</s>Of the longest-serving of all of Israel’s public servants, it was often rightly said: The story of Shimon Peres is the history of the State of Israel.



Peres, former president, former prime minister, for - mer defense minister, for - mer foreign minister, former head of eight other minis- tries and the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was the last surviving member of the state’s founding fathers.

THEN-DEFENSE MINISTRY director-general Shimon Peres (seated second right) attends a meeting of the IDF General Staff with prime minister David Ben-Gurion in 1961. Peres is sitting between then-finance minster Levi Eshkol and then-agriculture minister Moshe Dayan. (photo credit: GPO) Then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (C) and then-defense minister Shimon Peres (2nd L) greet hostages rescued from Entebbe back in Israel. (photo credit: IDF SPOKESMAN'S OFFICE/URI HERTZL TZHIK/IDF ARCHIV) THEN PRIME MINISTER Shimon Peres greets newly released Prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky at Ben-Gurion Airport where he was flown from Germany after being freed from a Soviet prison, exactly 30 years ago on Thursday or February 11, 1986.. (photo credit: GPO) Former PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, then foreign minister Shimon Peres and then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (from L to R) show their shared Nobel Peace Prize awards to the audience in Oslo in this December 10, 1994 file photo. (photo credit: REUTERS) Shimon Peres sings alongside Miri Aloni and Yitzhak Rabin at a peace rally in Tel Aviv on November 4, 1995. Rabin was assassinated after the demonstration. (photo credit: NOAM WIND) Barack Obama honors Shimon Peres with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in 2012. (photo credit: GPO) Pope Francis, flanked by former president Shimon Peres (left) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arrives at Mount Herzl during his visit to Israel last May.. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST) Former President Shimon Peres on Snapchat.. (photo credit: FACEBOOK) Director and actress Natalie Portman (L) speaks with former president Shimon Peres during a photocall for her film "A Tale of Love and Darkness" in Jerusalem, September 3, 2015. (photo credit: REUTERS)

A lifetime searching for peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors was rewarded on December 10, 1994, when Peres – along with then- prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat – received a Nobel Peace Prize. The award recognized their work as the architects of the 1993 inter - im peace deal known as the Oslo I Accord – a pact that, to Peres’s dismay, never hard- ened into a lasting treaty.



In a career spanning some 70 years, Peres was a servant of the state who was inti- mately involved in every aspect of the country’s histo- ry since before its founding. In his 48 years in parliament – from the fourth Knesset in 1959 through the 17th in 2007 – he served in var - ious parliamentary groups, including Mapai, Rafi, Labor, the Alignment, Labor, One Israel, Labor-Meimad, Labor- Meimad-Am Ehad and Kadi- ma. His main affiliation was with the Labor Party.



Peres’s string of govern- ment roles included two stints as prime minister – from 1984 to 1986 as part of a rotational government, and for seven months in 1995 and 1996 after the assassination of Rabin – as well as minis- ter of immigrant absorption, transportation, information, defense, communications (or posts and telegraphs as it was known at the time), internal affairs, religious affairs, for - eign affairs, finance, regional cooperation, and develop- ment of the Negev and Gal- ilee, serving in some of those positions more than once. He also served several times as acting prime minister, deputy prime minister and vice prime minister.



Though Peres ran for prime minister five times from 1977 and 1996, he never won a national election outright.



Peres was born on August 2, 1923, in Wiszniewo, Poland, as Szymon Perski, and immi- grated to Palestine with his family at the age of 11. He grew up in Tel Aviv, attend- ing the Balfour and Geula schools in Tel Aviv, and the agricultural high school in Ben-Shemen. He spent sever - al years at Kibbutz Geva and Kibbutz Alumot, of which he was one of the founders. In 1943, he was elected sec- retary of the Labor-Zionist youth movement.



At age 24, he worked with David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol in command of the Hagana, responsible for manpower and arms. During and after the War of Inde- pendence, Peres served as head of the naval services.



In 1952, he joined the Defense Ministry and, a year later at the age of 29, was appointed its director-gen- eral – the youngest ever – playing an important role in developing the Israeli mili- tary industry and promoting the development of Israel Aerospace Industries.



Peres was elected a mem- ber of Knesset in 1959, and, except for three months in early 2006, served until his election as president in June 2007. Among his achieve- ments as deputy defense minister from 1959 to 1965 were the establishment of the military and aviation industries and the promo- tion of strategic ties with France, which culminated in strategic cooperation during the 1956 Sinai Campaign. Peres also was instrumental in establishing Israel’s nucle- ar program.



For three years following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Peres again played a central role in the country’s secu- rity as defense minister. In that role, he revitalized and strengthened the IDF and was involved in the disen- gagement negotiations that led to the 1975 Interim Agreement with Egypt. He also was instrumental in the planning of the 1976 Enteb- be rescue operation. Peres briefly served as acting prime minister following the resignation of Rabin in 1977, and later served his first tenure as prime minister in the national unity government from 1984 to 1986, based on a rotation arrangement with Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir.



From November 1988 until the dissolution of the National unity government in 1990, Peres served as finance minister, focusing his energies on the failing economy and the complex situation resulting from the 1982 war in Lebanon.



He is credited with reducing the annual inflation rate from 400% to 16% and was instrumental in the withdrawal of troops from Lebanon and the establishment of a narrow security zone in southern Lebanon.



After Labor returned to power in the 1992 election, Peres was again appointed foreign minister and he initiated and conducted the negotiations that led to the signing of the Declaration of Principles with the PLO in September 1993.



Peres’s second term as prime minister came in the wake of the assassination of Rabin on November 4, 1995. The Labor Party chose Peres as Rabin’s successor, and the Knesset confirmed the decision with a vote of confidence supported by both coalition and opposition members.



Despite polls showing him far ahead, Peres lost to Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu in the election on May 29, 1996, by fewer than 30,000 votes.



In October 1997, Peres created the Peres Center for Peace with the aim of advancing Arab-Israeli joint ventures. He was also the author of 12 books.



When he was sworn in as the ninth president of the state on July 15, 2007, Peres was the first former prime minister to serve in the role. He was two weeks shy of his 91st birthday when he completed his seven-year term in 2014.



Peres’s wife, Sonia, died in 2011.



The couple had three children, eight grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren.





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`; document.getElementById("linkPremium").innerHTML = cont; (function (v, i){ });</s>TRIBUTES have been paid to former Israeli president Shimon Peres who died in Tel Aviv aged 93.

The former Nobel Peace Prize winner had been hospitalised following a stroke two weeks ago.

Peres, once a shepherd on a kibbutz, 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 Oslo in 1993 which never turned into a lasting treaty.

Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli ultra-nationalist who opposed theOslo agreement, and it was Peres who took over as prime minister after Rabin's death.

But Palestinian suicide bombings that killed dozens of Israelis and an aggressive campaign by Likud battered Peres's rating and he lost the 1996 election to Benjamin Netanyahu by less than 30,000 votes.
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In 2000, the failure of final-status peace talks with the Palestinians and the eruption of a Palestinian uprising rife with suicide bombings further damaged Israel's left and Peres's leadership prospects.

In 2005, Peres left the Labour Party to join then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new party, Kadima, which had spearheaded Israel's unilateral pullout from the Gaza Strip earlier that year. Following Kadima's 2006 election victory, Peres served as vice prime minister.

Born in 1923 in what is now Belarus, Peres emigrated to British-ruled Palestine with his family a decade later.

Israel's founding father David Ben-Gurion groomed him for leadership. He oversaw arms purchases and manpower in the Hagana, the Zionist fighting force, before Israel's establishment.

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.
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Peres held the largely ceremonial post of president from 2007-2014 and used the pulpit to continue to advocate peace.

President Barack Obama, who will attend the funeral, hailed Peres as a leader whose commitment to Israel's security and the pursuit of peace "was rooted in his own unshakeable moral foundation and unflagging optimism".

Obama said Peres looked to the future "guided by a vision of the human dignity and progress that he knew people of goodwill could advance together".

He called him "the essence of Israel itself," noting that Peres had fought for the nation's independence, worked its land and served in virtually every government position.

The president said that with the death of Peres "a light has gone out, but the hope he gave us will burn forever".
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Former US President Bill Clinton and his wife, Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton said: "With the passing of Shimon Peres, Israel has lost a leader who championed its security, prosperity, and limitless possibilities from its birth to his last day on earth.

"The Middle East has lost a fervent advocate for peace and reconciliation and for a future where all the children of Abraham build a better tomorrow together."</s>JERUSALEM - Former Israeli president and elder statesman Shimon Peres, a joint winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize and an influential figure in Israeli politics for 70 years, died in hospital on Wednesday aged 93, two weeks after suffering a massive stroke.

A convinced campaigner for Middle East peace who remained energetic until his final days, Peres was mourned by world leaders and praised for his tireless engagement.

U.S. President Barack Obama said: "A light has gone out".

"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," Obama said in a statement. "My friend Shimon was one of those people."

Despite decades of rivalry with Peres, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a right-winger who defeated the then-Labour Party leader in a 1996 election, praised him as a stalwart of the center-left and a visionary.

"There were many things we agreed upon, and the number grew as the years passed. But we had disagreements, a natural part of democratic life," Netanyahu said after holding a minute's silence at a specially convened cabinet meeting.

"Shimon won international recognition that spanned the globe. World leaders wanted to be in his proximity and respected him. Along with us, many of them will accompany him on his last journey to eternal rest in the soil of Jerusalem."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement saying he had sent a condolence letter to the family expressing his "sadness and regret" and praising Peres's "intensive efforts to reach out for a lasting peace ... until the last days".

It was not clear if he would attend Peres's funeral, which will take place on Friday at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery, in a section dedicated to "Great Leaders of the Nation".

In the Gaza Strip, Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the enclave's Hamas Islamist rulers, said: "The Palestinian people are happy over the departure of this criminal, who was involved in many crimes and in the bloodshed of the Palestinian people."

Obama, Britain's Prince Charles and former U.S. president Bill Clinton are among those expected to attend, Israeli radio reported, although Israel's Foreign Ministry could not immediately confirm the attendance list.

French President Francois Hollande also confirmed he would attend, alongside his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.

The announcement of the death was made at the Tel Hashomer hospital by his son Chemi and son-in-law Rafi Walden.

"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," said Walden, who was also Peres's personal physician.

Polish-born Peres, whose family moved to then British-ruled Palestine in the 1930s, was part of almost every major political development in Israel since its founding in 1948. He served in a dozen cabinets and was twice prime minister, though he never won a general election, struggling to connect with ordinary voters.

He was first elected to Israel's parliament in 1959 and barring a brief interlude in early 2006, held his seat for 48 years, until he became president in 2007.

In every role he undertook - from forging Israel's defense strategy in the 1950s to running his eponymous peace foundation - Peres was known for his energy and enthusiasm, even recording jokey YouTube videos into his 90s.

"Optimists and pessimists die the same way," he said. "They just live differently. I prefer to live as an optimist."

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, the Oslo Accords, 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 Dimona reactor from France while defense ministry director-general in the 1950s.

As defense minister, he oversaw the 1976 Israeli rescue of hijacked Israelis at Entebbe airport in Uganda.

In the Arab world, his legacy is tainted by the 1996 shelling of a United Nations compound in the village of Qana in southern Lebanon during an Israeli offensive. More than 100 civilians sheltering there were killed. Peres was prime minister at the time and Israel said its forces had been aiming at militants firing rockets nearby.

Peres was also seen to have done little to rein in the expansion of Israeli settlements on land captured during the 1967 Middle East war, even if he was not an active proponent of a policy that Obama has described as an obstacle to peace.

From 2007, when he was elected president at the second attempt, Peres played more of a ceremonial role, trying to raise Israel's profile internationally while advocating for peace through his foundation. He stepped down as president in 2014.

Despite the influence he has had on Israel's landscape, his death is not expected to have an impact on the already dim prospects for a return to peace talks with the Palestinians.</s>Former Israeli president and elder statesman Shimon Peres died in Tel Aviv on Wednesday at age 93, according to media reports late Tuesday night.

Peres was hospitalized after suffering a stroke two weeks ago and had made some progress before a sudden deterioration in his condition on Tuesday.

An official announcement of the death of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former prime minister was expected at around 7 a.m. local time.

Peres’ close relatives rushed to his hospital bedside earlier Tuesday amid media reports that his condition had deteriorated and he was close to death.

Peres, Israel’s most eminent elder statesman, was part of almost every major development from the country’s founding in 1948. In a career spanning nearly 70 years, he served in a dozen cabinets and was twice a Labor prime minister.

Peres is widely seen as having gained nuclear capabilities for Israel by procuring the secret Dimona reactor from France while defense ministry director-general in the 1950s. And as defense minister oversaw the 1976 Israeli rescue of hijacked Israelis at Entebbe airport in Uganda.

He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the late former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for reaching, in 1993, an interim peace deal which never hardened into a lasting treaty.

Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli ultranationalist who opposed the interim accords, and it was Peres who took over as prime minister after Rabin’s death.

He held the largely ceremonial post of president from 2007 to 2014 and used the pulpit to continue to advocate peace.

Details of when Peres’ funeral will take place were not initially available.</s>JERUSALEM — Former Israeli President Shimon Peres has died at the age of 93.

Peres was hospitalized two weeks ago after suffering a stroke that led to bleeding in his brain.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate had been sedated and was on a respirator during most of his hospitalization.</s>Shimon Peres, a former Israeli president and prime minister, whose life story mirrored that of the Jewish state and who was celebrated around the world as a Nobel prize-winning visionary who pushed his country toward peace, has died, the Israeli news website YNet reported early Wednesday. He was 93.

In an unprecedented seven-decade political career, Peres filled nearly every position in Israeli public life and was credited with leading the country through some of its most defining moments, from creating its nuclear arsenal in the 1950s, to disentangling its troops from Lebanon and rescuing its economy from triple-digit inflation in the 1980s, to guiding a skeptical nation into peace talks with the Palestinians in the 1990s.

A protege of Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion, he led the Defense Ministry in his 20s and spearheaded the development of Israel’s nuclear program. He was first elected to parliament in 1959 and later held every major Cabinet post — including defense, finance and foreign affairs — and served three brief stints as prime minister. His key role in the first Israeli-Palestinian peace accord earned him a Nobel Peace Prize and revered status as Israel’s then most recognizable figure abroad.

And yet, for much of his political career he could not parlay his international prestige into success in Israeli politics, where he was branded by many as both a utopian dreamer and political schemer. His well-tailored, necktied appearance and swept-back gray hair seemed to separate him from his more informal countrymen. He suffered a string of electoral defeats: competing in five general elections seeking the prime minister’s spot, he lost four and tied one.

He finally secured the public adoration that had long eluded him when he has chosen by parliament to a seven-year term as Israel’s ceremonial president in 2007, taking the role of elder statesman.

Peres was celebrated by doves and vilified by hawks for advocating far-reaching Israeli compromises for peace even before he negotiated the first interim accord with the Palestinians in 1993 that set into motion a partition plan that gave them limited self-rule. That was followed by a peace accord with neighboring Jordan. But after a fateful six-month period in 1995-96 that included Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings and Peres’ own election loss to the more conservative Benjamin Netanyahu, the prospects for peace began to evaporate.

Relegated to the political wilderness, he created his non-governmental Peres Center for Peace that raised funds for cooperation and development projects involving Israel, the Palestinians and Arab nations. He returned to it at age 91 when he completed his term as president.

Shimon Perski was born on Aug. 2, 1923, in Vishneva, then part of Poland. He moved to pre-state Palestine in 1934 with his immediate family. Her grandfather and other relatives stayed behind and perished in the Holocaust. Rising quickly through Labor Party ranks, he became a top aide to Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and a man Peres once called “the greatest Jew of our time.”

At 29, he was the youngest person to serve as director of Israel’s Defense Ministry, and is credited with arming Israel’s military almost from scratch. Yet throughout his political career, he suffered from the fact that he never wore an army uniform or fought in a war.

Of his 10 books, several amplified his vision of a “new Middle East” where there was peaceful economic and cultural cooperation among all the nations of the region.

Despite continued waves of violence that pushed the Israeli political map to the right, the concept of a Palestinian state next to Israel became mainstream Israeli policy many years after Peres advocated it.

Shunted aside during the 1999 election campaign, won by party colleague Ehud Barak, Peres rejected advice to retire, assuming the newly created and loosely defined Cabinet post of Minister for Regional Cooperation.

In 2000, Peres absorbed another resounding political slap, losing an election in the parliament for the largely ceremonial post of president to Likud Party backbencher Moshe Katsav, who was later convicted and imprisoned for rape.

Even so, Peres refused to quit. In 2001, at age 77, he took the post of foreign minister in the government of national unity set up by Ariel Sharon, serving for 20 months before Labor withdrew from the coalition.

Then he followed Sharon into a new party, Kadima, serving as vice premier under Sharon and his successor, Ehud Olmert, before assuming the presidency.</s>TEL AVIV—Former Israeli president and elder statesman Shimon Peres died in Tel Aviv on Wednesday aged 93, Israel Radio said.

Peres was hospitalized following a stroke two weeks ago and had made some progress before a sudden deterioration in his condition on Tuesday.

An official announcement of the death of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former prime minister was expected at a later date. Details of the timing of the funeral were also expected.

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 defense ministry director-general in the 1950s. And as defense 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.</s>Shimon Peres, a former Israeli president and prime minister, whose life story mirrored that of the Jewish state and who was celebrated around the world as a Nobel prize-winning visionary who pushed his country toward peace, has died, the Israeli news website YNet reported early Wednesday.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Shimon Peres, a former Israeli president and prime minister, whose life story mirrored that of the Jewish state and who was celebrated around the world as a Nobel prize-winning visionary who pushed his country toward peace, died early Wednesday, a person close to him confirmed. Peres was 93.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Peres’ health with the media. The family said it would issue a formal announcement shortly.

Peres’ condition worsened following a major stroke two weeks ago that led to bleeding in his brain. He was sedated and on a respirator during most of his hospitalization.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement mourning the passing of Peres. He said he will convene his Cabinet for a special session later in the day.

As word of Peres’ death spread, reaction started pouring in from around the globe.

President Barack Obama eulogized him as a man who represented “the essence of Israel itself.”

“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,” he said. “A light has gone out, but the hope he gave us will burn forever.”

Former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also issued statements of mourning.

Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is the elder statesman of Israeli politics, one of the country’s most admired leaders and the last surviving link to its founding fathers.

In an unprecedented seven-decade political career, Peres filled nearly every position in Israeli public life and was credited with leading the country through some of its most defining moments, from creating its nuclear arsenal in the 1950s, to disentangling its troops from Lebanon and rescuing its economy from triple-digit inflation in the 1980s, to guiding a skeptical nation into peace talks with the Palestinians in the 1990s.

A protege of Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion, he led the Defense Ministry in his 20s and spearheaded the development of Israel’s nuclear program. He was first elected to parliament in 1959 and later held every major Cabinet post — including defense, finance and foreign affairs — and served three brief stints as prime minister. His key role in the first Israeli-Palestinian peace accord earned him a Nobel Peace Prize and revered status as Israel’s then most recognizable figure abroad.

And yet, for much of his political career he could not parlay his international prestige into success in Israeli politics, where he was branded by many as both a utopian dreamer and political schemer. His well-tailored, necktied appearance and swept-back gray hair seemed to separate him from his more informal countrymen. He suffered a string of electoral defeats: competing in five general elections seeking the prime minister’s spot, he lost four and tied one.

He finally secured the public adoration that had long eluded him when he has chosen by parliament to a seven-year term as Israel’s ceremonial president in 2007, taking the role of elder statesman.

Peres was celebrated by doves and vilified by hawks for advocating far-reaching Israeli compromises for peace even before he negotiated the first interim accord with the Palestinians in 1993 that set into motion a partition plan that gave them limited self-rule. That was followed by a peace accord with neighboring Jordan. But after a fateful six-month period in 1995-96 that included Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings and Peres’ own election loss to the more conservative Benjamin Netanyahu, the prospects for peace began to evaporate.

Relegated to the political wilderness, he created his non-governmental Peres Center for Peace that raised funds for cooperation and development projects involving Israel, the Palestinians and Arab nations. He returned to it at age 91 when he completed his term as president.

Shimon Perski was born on Aug. 2, 1923, in Vishneva, then part of Poland. He moved to pre-state Palestine in 1934 with his immediate family. Her grandfather and other relatives stayed behind and perished in the Holocaust. Rising quickly through Labor Party ranks, he became a top aide to Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and a man Peres once called “the greatest Jew of our time.”

At 29, he was the youngest person to serve as director of Israel’s Defense Ministry, and is credited with arming Israel’s military almost from scratch. Yet throughout his political career, he suffered from the fact that he never wore an army uniform or fought in a war.

Of his 10 books, several amplified his vision of a “new Middle East” where there was peaceful economic and cultural cooperation among all the nations of the region.

Despite continued waves of violence that pushed the Israeli political map to the right, the concept of a Palestinian state next to Israel became mainstream Israeli policy many years after Peres advocated it.

Shunted aside during the 1999 election campaign, won by party colleague Ehud Barak, Peres rejected advice to retire, assuming the newly created and loosely defined Cabinet post of Minister for Regional Cooperation.

In 2000, Peres absorbed another resounding political slap, losing an election in the parliament for the largely ceremonial post of president to Likud Party backbencher Moshe Katsav, who was later convicted and imprisoned for rape.

Even so, Peres refused to quit. In 2001, at age 77, he took the post of foreign minister in the government of national unity set up by Ariel Sharon, serving for 20 months before Labor withdrew from the coalition.

Then he followed Sharon into a new party, Kadima, serving as vice-premier under Sharon and his successor, Ehud Olmert, before assuming the presidency.</s>TEL AVIV (JTA) — Shimon Peres, the former defense hawk turned Nobel Peace Prize winner and the last of Israel’s founders, has died.

Peres died before dawn Wednesday at 93, Israel Radio reported. The former president suffered a massive stroke earlier this month and was reported initially to be in stable but critical condition. His condition was reported to have deteriorated dramatically on Tuesday afternoon. Israel Radio quoted his family, who were at his side, as saying he was “fighting until the end.”

The phoenix of Israeli politics, Peres continually reinvented himself as the country changed. He began his career in the Defense Ministry and was the architect of Israel’s nuclear program, but in his later years Peres was more closely identified with the quest for peace with the Palestinians. He was instrumental in negotiating the Oslo Accords, the landmark Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, and was present on the White House lawn for its signing in 1993.

Though he served as prime minister three times without ever winning an election outright, and shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for a peace that has yet to materialize, Peres emerged late in life as Israel’s beloved elder statesmen and a rare figure capable of uniting a fractious society.

Following the signing of the Oslo Accords, Peres emerged as Israel’s global ambassador for peace, predicting the emergence of a “new Middle East” in which conflict was supplanted by shared prosperity. Elected to the largely ceremonial role of president in 2007, talk of peace pervaded nearly every speech he gave. Well into his 90s, Peres still insisted he would live to see the day when peace would come.

Peace, however, doomed his political career. After middling political success in the 1980s, the Oslo Accords debilitated Peres’ Labor Party, which fell from power in 2001 with the outbreak of the second intifada and has yet to win another election. When Peres won the presidency in 2007, he was a member of Kadima, a short-lived centrist party.

As president, Peres rose again, this time as Israel’s wise old man. Free to rise above the political fray, Peres trumpeted Israel’s technological achievements and articulated its hopes for a brighter future. More than anything, he became a symbol of the country’s resilience — able to survive, thrive and remain optimistic — no matter the challenges.

Born Szymon Perski in Wiszniewo, Poland, in 1923, Peres moved with his family to Tel Aviv in 1934. At 20, he became the head of a Labor Zionist youth group, through which he met David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel’s first prime minister. In 1945, Peres married Sonya Gelman, who had just returned from World War II service in the British Army.

The couple was married for 67 years, though they separated after Peres became a presidential candidate. Sonia Peres had long refused to play the part of political wife, and after Peres moved to the president’s residence in Jerusalem, she changed the name on her Tel Aviv mailbox to Sonia Gal, a Hebraicized version of her maiden name. Sonia Peres died in 2011 at 87.

In 1947, Peres joined the Haganah, managing arms purchases and personnel. After Israel gained independence the following year, he continued working in the Defense Ministry, becoming its youngest-ever director-general in 1952 at 29. In that capacity he expanded Israeli arms purchases from France and later helped manage the 1956 Sinai Campaign. He also founded Israel’s arms production industry and led efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

Peres was first elected to the Knesset in 1959 with Ben-Gurion’s ruling Mapai party, becoming deputy defense minister. He would serve in the Knesset for an as-yet unmatched total of 48 years. Peres remained a close Ben-Gurion ally, splitting from Mapai with him in 1965 to form a rival party and then rejoining Mapai when it became the Alignment in 1968.

After serving in several minor ministerial positions, Peres became defense minister in 1974 under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Peres was a territorial hawk, opposing early proposals for West Bank withdrawal and supporting settlement expansion. When Rabin resigned amid scandal in 1977, Peres briefly became acting prime minister, then lost the post when the Alignment was defeated in the 1977 election by Menachem Begin’s Likud party.

Peres headed the Alignment — the precursor to today’s Labor Party — for the next 15 years, contesting three more close elections with Likud. The two parties formed a unity government following the 1984 elections — Peres was prime minister from 1984 to 1986, then foreign minister under Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir from 1986 to 1988.

As foreign minister in 1987, Peres conducted secret negotiations with King Hussein of Jordan for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank as part of an Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty. But Shamir rejected the proposed agreement, and the following year Jordan unilaterally relinquished its claim to the West Bank.

After the Alignment lost the 1988 elections, Peres again joined a Likud-led government as finance minister, but tried to overthrow the government two years later. In what became known as the Dirty Trick, Peres assembled an Alignment-led coalition with leftist and haredi Orthodox parties, only to see it fall apart after he received a mandate to form a governing coalition. He lost his party’s chairmanship to Rabin in 1992, and again became foreign minister when the party, now renamed Labor, won elections that year.

Under Rabin, Peres was the architect of the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinians autonomy in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

“Israel’s role in the Middle East should be to contribute to a great, sustained regional revival,” Peres said upon accepting the prize. “A Middle East without wars, without enemies, without ballistic missiles, without nuclear warheads.”

After Rabin was assassinated in 1995, Peres became acting prime minister, but lost the post again in a close race with Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu. Following his defeat in ’96, he founded the Peres Center for Peace, which runs programs aimed at regional reconciliation.

Peres remained in the Labor Party through 2005, twice regaining the chairmanship and serving another stint as foreign minister under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In 2006, following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Peres joined Sharon’s new centrist Kadima party.

The next year he won a race for Israel’s largely ceremonial presidency. As president, Peres stayed largely above the political fray, though he conducted secret negotiations with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2011, culminating in a peace deal that Netanyahu’s government rejected. After leaving the presidency, Peres remained largely silent on politics.

Peres frequently traveled internationally as president, focusing his speeches and activism on encouraging Middle East peace and touting Israel’s technological achievements. His annual Presidential Conference brought together leaders in politics, science and culture. He finished his presidential term in 2014.

He is survived by three children, Tsvia Walden, Yoni Peres and Chemi Peres, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Former President and Prime Minister of Israel, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres dies at the age of 93.