Israel: World leaders to attend Shimon Peres’ funeral

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrr6CZWu9aN6vZIVSmy6spg1JOjD4zmgJsusL8hT0y3wegdJge9Q0OOMplModWkSdf9u1B61XoFAmIUNsaqbsNjPVKiPIX9BWh-zhD6ITahGVwBmleT5DOvShX7Oe_VrJ69jVZeg3fslhc/s2560/%25255BUNSET%25255D.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrr6CZWu9aN6vZIVSmy6spg1JOjD4zmgJsusL8hT0y3wegdJge9Q0OOMplModWkSdf9u1B61XoFAmIUNsaqbsNjPVKiPIX9BWh-zhD6ITahGVwBmleT5DOvShX7Oe_VrJ69jVZeg3fslhc/s640/%25255BUNSET%25255D.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"/></a>A long list of world leaders will attend the funeral of former Israeli prime minister and president Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday at 93.<br/> <br/> Some of the world’s most powerful figures will be at the service in Jerusalem on Friday, including US President Barack Obama.<br/> <br/> Mr Peres’s condition had deteriorated after suffering a stroke two weeks ago.<br/> <br/> He was one of the last of a generation of Israeli politicians present at the nation’s birth in 1948.<br/> <br/> Mr Peres won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his role negotiating the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians a year earlier, a prize he shared with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.<br/> <br/> The agreement was witnessed by former US President Bill Clinton and signed at the White House. On Wednesday Mr Clinton said on Twitter:<br/> <br/> “I will miss Shimon Peres, my brilliant and eloquent friend. His life was a blessing to all who strive for peace…”<br/> <br/> Other world leaders set to attend the funeral on Friday include UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.<br/> <br/> Mr Peres will receive a state burial at a ceremony on Friday at Mount Herzel Cemetery in Jerusalem.<br/> <br/> Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sent a letter of condolence to Mr Peres’ family “expressing his sorrow and sadness”.<br/> <br/> “Peres was a partner in creating the peace of the brave with the late President Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Rabin, and has made intensive efforts to reach a long-lasting peace since the Oslo agreement and until the last breath,” he said in a statement.<br/> <br/> It is not clear if Mr Abbas will attend the funeral.<br/> <br/> However, some Palestinians and others across the Middle East were not mourning his passing. Abdul Rahman Daireyeh, a resident in Ramallah, told the BBC:<br/> <br/> “He [Peres] is a war criminal who has killed hundreds of Palestinians. He was never a man of peace. Towards the end of his life, he appeared as a man of peace but he was never that person, as he killed hundreds.”<br/> <br/> The militant Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, said that Mr Peres’s death was the “end of the history of occupation”.<br/> <br/> Mr Peres once said the Palestinians were Israel’s “closest neighbours” and might become its “closest friends”.<br/> <br/> His son, Chemi, said of his father: “He served our people before we even had a country of our own. He worked tirelessly for Israel from the very first day of the state to the last day of his life.”<br/> <br/> Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his “deep sorrow” over Mr Peres’ death in a video statement.<br/> <br/> “As a man of peace, he worked until his final days toward reconciling with our neighbours for a better future for our children.”<br/> <br/> Once an advocate of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Mr Peres later became a leading political dove. He often spoke of the need for compromise over territorial demands in Palestinian areas.<br/> <br/> Source: BBC</div>

Israel: World leaders to attend Shimon Peres’ funeral

A long list of world leaders will attend the funeral of former Israeli prime minister and president Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday at 9...

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