Former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, the last of Israel’s founding fathers, suffered a “major” stroke and was breathing with the aid of a respirator in intensive care early Wednesday.
Nationwide concern mounted over the condition of 93-year-old Peres, widely respected as an elder statesman both in Israel and abroad. Peres suffered “a major stroke today with a component of bleeding,” Dr. Yitzhak Kreis told journalists late Tuesday outside the hospital near Tel Aviv where he was being treated. He was sedated in the intensive care unit, said Kreis, director of the Sheba Medical Centre at Tel HaShomer in Ramat Gan. A later statement from Peres’s office said he was in serious but stable condition, with doctors having decided not to operate for the time being. (AFP)