Ex-Israeli president Peres hospitalized after heart attack

JERUSALEM – Agence France-Presse

AP photo

Former Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, 92, was hospitalized Jan. 14 for cardiovascular problems and is in stable condition after a medical procedure, his spokesman said.

The elder statesman, who has towered over Israeli politics for decades, was hospitalized near Tel Aviv “after experiencing chest pains,” the spokesman said in a statement.

“He underwent a cardiac catheterization during which a narrowed artery was diagnosed which was then widened during the procedure. Former president Peres is feeling well and is fully conscious, his condition is stable.”   

Peres, a co-architect of the Oslo peace accords in 1993, was named joint Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1994 with Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated the following year, and then-Palestinian president Yasser Arafat.

The last of Israel’s founding fathers, Peres has held nearly every major office in the country, including that of prime minister more than once and president from 2007-2014.