Israel: Shimon Peres ‘in serious but stable condition’

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres is in “serious but stable” condition after suffering a major stroke, according to the doctors treating him.

Doctors put the 93-year-old elder statesman, who was rushed to hospital on Tuesday, into an induced coma to allow him to rest after experiencing significant bleeding in the brain.

“Mr Peres passed the night without any other incident,” Yitzhak Kreiss, director of the Sheba Medical Centre near Tel Aviv, told reporters outside the hospital on Wednesday.

He said Peres was being transferred to the neurosurgical intensive care unit where he would continue to be evaluated.

Peres’s personal physician and son-in-law, Raphy Walden, said the former president’s chances for survival were “pretty good”, with no immediate threat to his life.

He added that Peres was responsive during treatment overnight.

“When we lessened the sedation, he woke up – not completely but definitely was responsive to our appeals to him,” he told AFP news agency.

“He squeezed my hand and was definitely listening and understanding what was happening.”

Speaking from outside the Ramat Gan hospital late on Tuesday, Chemi Peres, the former president’s youngest son, said that he was hoping for the best.

“We understand the concern, we understand that people are interested in his situation and we promise to keep you updated as much as we can,” he said.

“I am optimistic. I am a great believer in my father. He is a unique person.”

Peres had a political career spanning nearly seven decades, serving in a dozen cabinets and twice as a Labour Party prime minister. 

He later served as president from 2007 to 2014 before leaving government.

Peres shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Israel’s late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for a 1993 interim peace deal that they and their successors failed to turn into a durable treaty.