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Israel's Peres in serious but slightly better condition after stroke

Xinhua, September 14, 2016 Adjust font size:

Israel's former president Shimon Peres has slightly improved after he suffered a major stroke on Tuesday night, his doctors said on Wednesday afternoon.

"After 24 hours of intensive care, I can say that his condition is still severe but he is stable, and there is a certain improvement," Prof. Yitzhak Kreiss, director of the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, outside Tel Aviv, told reporters in the hospital.

"His neurological condition is slightly better and all his parameters are stable," Kreiss said, adding that the full recovery of Peres is remained to be seen.

He said that Peres was still under induced coma and on a respirator.

Prof. Rafi Walden, Peres' son-in-law and his personal physician, reiterated his optimistic forecast, saying that when the doctors stop the sedation for a while, Peres squeezed his hand "warmly," when he asked him to, and seemed aware of his surroundings.

Nationwide concern was mounting after the 93-year-old statesmen and Nobel Prize winner suffered on Tuesday night a stroke.

On Tuesday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was briefed on Peres' medical condition. "The Prime Minister conveyed the prayers of the entire nation for a quick recovery," said a statement released by his office.

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."

Peres, one of the nation's eldest statesmen, served as a lawmaker and a minister. He ran several times for the prime minister office but failed to gain enough votes. However, he served twice as a prime minister due to coalition agreements.

As a foreign minister in the assassinated Yitzhak Rabin government, he took part in leading the peace accords that Israel signed with the Palestinians and Jordan in the 1990s.

In 1994, he won the Nobel Peace Prize together with Rabin and the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

He served as Israel's ninth president between 2007 and 2014, a mostly ceremonial post that turned him to be one of the country's most popular presidents.

After he stepped down as president, he remained active in the public sphere through his activities at the Peres Center for Peace, advocating for coexistence and peace between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Endit