Former Israeli President, Prime Minister Shimon Peres Dies Aged 93

Former Israeli president, two-time prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres died on Wednesday, aged 93.

The renowned politician had suffered a “major stroke” on September 13 and had been hospitalized since then until his passing.

Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 alongside then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for his role in negotiating the Oslo Accords, the historic agreement which led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority.

Peres was born in Poland in 1923 and, at the age of 11, emigrated to the Middle East to live in Palestine, which was then under British mandate.

In the 1940s, he joined the call for the establishment of a Jewish state and eventually became a key player in the Israeli state’s military.

Over the following five decades, Peres served in a number of official positions in Israel, including serving as a member of parliament from 1959 to 1977, when he became the head of the Labor Party. He went on to serve as the country’s prime minister from 1984-1986 and again from 1995-1996, and eventually became the country’s president from 2007 until he left office in 2014.

He has been lauded for his role in promoting peace between Israel, Palestine and the Arab world, particularly through the Peres Center for Peace, which he founded in 1996.

“I think it’s the only thing which is possible in order to bring an end to terror, violence and hatred,” Peres said in an interview with Time, published in February.