Israel's Peres remains in stable but serious condition: hospital

RAMAT GAN, ISRAEL: Former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres remained in a serious but stable condition Wednesday after suffering a major stroke, the hospital where he was being treated said.

"Mr Peres passed the night without any other incident," Yitzhak Kreiss, director of the Sheba Medical Centre at Tel HaShomer in Ramat Gan, told reporters outside the hospital.

"He is in stable but still serious condition."

The last of Israel's founding fathers, Peres has held nearly every major office in the country, including prime minister twice and president, a mostly ceremonial post, from 2007 to 2014.

A former hawk turned dove, the highlight of his career came in 1994, when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords with the Palestinians.

The first of the Oslo accords was signed exactly 23 years ago Tuesday -- September 13, 1993. Rabin was assassinated two years later.

In January, Peres was hospitalised twice for heart trouble.

In the first instance, the hospital said he had suffered a "mild cardiac event" and underwent catheterisation to widen an artery.

He was rushed to hospital a second time days later with chest pains and an irregular heartbeat.

Peres has sought to maintain an active schedule despite his age, particularly through events related to his Peres Center for Peace.

When leaving hospital on January 19, Peres said he was keen to get back to work.

"I'm so happy to return to work, that was the whole purpose of this operation," he told reporters.

He met US Vice President Joe Biden during a visit to Israel in March.

He once confided that the secret to his longevity was daily gymnastics, eating little and drinking one or two glasses of good wine.

Having earlier hawkishly rejected any compromise with hostile Arab states, he said he was converted after 1977, when Egyptian president Anwar Sadat made a historic visit to Jerusalem, leading to the first Arab-Israeli peace treaty.

Born in Poland in 1923, Peres emigrated to what was then British mandatory Palestine when he was 11.

He joined the Zionist struggle in the 1940s and while hitchhiking met David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel's first prime minister.

He became director general of the nascent defence ministry at only 29 years old.

Beyond his accomplishments in the public eye, Peres was also seen as a driving force in the development of Israel's undeclared nuclear programme.