The director of the hospital, Dr. Itzik Kreiss, told the media that the statesman suffered bleeding on the brain as a result of the stroke. His personal physician Prof.
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Walden said doctors would keep Peres under mild sedation to help him rest and optimize his chances for recovery. The question was what kind of damage was sustained and what kind of recovery he could make, Walden said.
He later was elected Israel’s ninth president and served from 2007-14, repeatedly expressing himself politically, which is unusual for the office.
Spokespeople for the the beloved former president said Peres has been put in an induced coma with sedation and placed on a respirator in order to facilitate continued treatment.
President Reuven Rivlin, Peres’ successor at the office, said he was following “with concern” the updates from the hospital, and “pray together with the entire people for my friend Shimon’s recovery”.
‘Myself and my family members are going through hard times, difficult hours, ‘ he said.
Nickolay Mladenov, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said he was praying for Peres, calling him ‘a patriarch of peace and progress’.
His spokeswoman Ayelet Frisch said Tuesday was no exception, waking early to read the daily newspaper before delivering an hour-long lecture and then uploaded a video to his Facebook account in which he encouraged the public to buy locally made products.
At the end of last month, Peres suffered chest pains and his son-in-law Professor Rafi Valdan was urgently called to his home in Tel Aviv.
Israeli Health Minister Yaakov Litzman told reporters that he was “a bit more optimistic than I would have been last night” about Peres’ condition.
The 93-year-old Peres was rushed to hospital after feeling ill and quickly diagnosed to have suffered a stroke.
He only retired in 2014, having completed his seven year term as the 9 President of the Jewish State. Perhaps most notably, Peres was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for negotiating the Oslo peace accord with the Palestinians, a prize he shared with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
When leaving hospital after his heart treatment in January, Peres told reporters he was “so happy to return to work, that was the whole goal of this operation”. “Shimon, we love you and the entire nation wishes you get well”, Netanyahu said. Two weeks later he was hospitalized again following a minor irregularity in his heartbeat.
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Peres has held almost every high political office in Israel over a 55-year political career, including three terms as prime minister, plus posts as foreign minister finance minister and deputy defense minister.
