Former Israeli President Shimon Peres Passes Away

Shimon Peres, the former President of Israel, passed away on Wednesday, October 7, at a hospital in Tel Aviv. Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli media reported that Mr. Peres's family and relatives were invited to bid farewell to him at the 'Sheba' hospital in Tel Aviv. Brain surgeons at this hospital had previously informed the media that 'the damage to Peres's brain is irreversible.' Israeli media reported that due to Mr. Peres's severe condition, the government and people of the country were preparing for any possibility regarding the announcement of Shimon Peres's end of life. Shimon Peres, 93 years old, felt unwell while speaking to inventors of modern technologies two weeks ago and went to a hospital in Tel Aviv by himself, but there he suffered a hemorrhage and a stroke. Despite his advanced age and severe brain hemorrhage, his condition had slightly improved in the following days. Meanwhile, 'Chemi Peres,' Shimon Peres's eldest son, stated that the family might have to make 'difficult decisions.' A few months before the brain hemorrhage, Mr. Peres had been hospitalized due to some heart failure, and each time he returned to his work at the 'Shimon Peres Center' and continued his activities in meetings with world leaders. Israeli media reported that in the past two weeks, many world leaders had contacted Mr. Peres's family to inquire about his condition. Shimon Peres served a seven-year term as President from 2007 to 2014, which was considered his last official position. Mr. Peres had served multiple terms as Prime Minister, several times as Foreign Minister, Minister of Defense, Minister of Finance, and held other positions. Shimon Peres had over 75 years of political experience, having begun his political efforts before the establishment of Israel. Shimon Peres, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, was considered the oldest living politician in the world in recent years. He was born in 1923 under the name 'Shimon Persky' in the town of 'Visnaba' in Poland; his birthplace is now part of the Republic of Belarus. He spent his childhood and adolescence as a shepherd; later, when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, he referred to his dreams during his shepherding days. His father, Isaac Persky, was a medium-sized businessman in the timber trade. Shimon Persky immigrated alone, accompanied by his religious grandfather, a rabbi, to a land where young, hardworking Jews were striving for the independence of a country for Jews. Shimon Peres published his views under his new name in Hebrew-language publications in the British Mandate territory in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Alongside working as a milkman for income, he also engaged in political activities among the politicians of that time, so much so that immediately after Israel's independence, he worked in the office of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister. He became Deputy Minister of Defense at under thirty years of age; he is considered one of the founders of Israel's nuclear reactor; he himself stated in recent years that the fact that Israel's nuclear capability remains deliberately ambiguous is a significant deterrent capability. Shimon Peres was always a rival of Isaac Rabin, the leader of the Labor Party, and always lost elections to him. Mr. Peres first became Prime Minister in the 1980s in a national unity government that included the rival Likud party led by Yitzhak Shamir. Shimon Peres was the chief architect of the peace agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization and convincing Isaac Rabin in 1993. Due to the peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, Peres, along with Rabin and Yasser Arafat, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. After Rabin was assassinated in the autumn of 1995 by an extremist Jewish student, Peres served as Prime Minister for a time. In April 1996, during his interim premiership while severe suicide bombings were carried out in Israel by Hamas, the killing of 113 Lebanese in the village of 'Qana' during the ongoing conflicts in southern Lebanon implicated Shimon Peres. He lost the next election to Benjamin Netanyahu despite the turmoil in Israeli society following the murder of his peace partner, Isaac Rabin. Shimon Peres was a supporter of rapprochement with the Iranian people and 'separating the account of the cultured people with an ancient civilization of Iran from the account of the statesmen of the Islamic Republic of Iran.'