PM Modi condoles passing of former Israel president Shimon Peres

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today conveyed his condolences to the people of Israel, on the demise of former Israel President Mr. Shimon Peres.

"In former President Shimon Peres, we lost a key world leader and a friend of India. Pained by his demise. Our condolences to people of Israel", the Prime Minister said.

Peres, who shared a Nobel Prize for forging a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, died at the age of 93.

He had suffered a stroke two weeks ago, reports the Guardian.

Peres had twice served as prime minister of Israel and later as the country's ninth president. Peres, Israel's most eminent elder statesman, was part of almost every major development from the country's founding in 1948.

In a career spanning nearly 70 years, he served in a dozen cabinets and was twice a Labour Prime Minister.

He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the late former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for reaching, in 1993, an interim peace deal which never hardened into a lasting treaty.