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Roundup: Israelis pay tribute to Peres as world leaders arrive

Xinhua, September 30, 2016 Adjust font size:

Tens of thousands of Israelis streamed to the parliament's plaza on Thursday, where the casket of Shimon Peres was laid in state, to pay a final tribute to the former president and prime minister.

A spokeswoman for Culture Minister Miri Regev, who was put in charge of the funeral arrangements, said about 35,000 people came to view the flag-covered coffin and 15,000 more are expected to arrive tonight.

Some 80 international delegations are expected to arrive in Israel on Thursday, mostly during the night, ahead of the Friday funeral, according to the Foreign Ministry.

The long list of leaders and celebrities includes U.S. ex-president Bill Clinton, French President Francois Hollande, Britain's Prince Charles, Chairman of hi-tech giant John Chambers, and the U.S. Jewish singer and actress Barbara Streisand.

U.S. President Barack Obama was scheduled to land early on Friday morning, said Ofer Lefler, a spokesman for the Israel Airport Authority. Obama and Clinton were also expected to eulogize Peres at the service.

The service will be closed to the public due to the tight security arrangements, Regev said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was said to attend the service too, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized his entry to Israel, according to the Prime Minister's Office.

Lawmakers with the Arab-Jewish Joint List party said they would skip the service. "The memory of Peres among the Arab public is different from the narrative of the last few days," Joint List leader Ayman Odeh wrote in Hebrew on Twitter.

He acknowledged Peres' strive for peace in the 1990s. However, Odeh said, members of the Arab public have "a fierce opposition to the man of security, occupation and settlement construction, who introduced nuclear (weapons) to the Middle East and, unfortunately, also as a president who chose to support Netanyahu and his policies."

The security arrangements for the funeral service were among the most "complex logistic operations" in the history of Israel, according to a statement issued by the Defense Ministry.

"Hundreds of employees with the Defense Ministry and private logistic companies are working around the clock in cooperation with national agencies to allow an honorable funeral," the statement read.

The arrangements included "procurement of tens of thousands of water bottles, kilometers of barricades and fences, podiums and tents for shadows, TV screens, simultaneous translation in five languages (English, Russian, French, Italian, and Arabic), flowers and more," the Ministry said.

Police Chief Roni Alsheich told a press conference that "several" Jews and Arabs who have "threatened or tried to terrorize Peres's funeral" were arrested over the past day.

Peres passed away early on Wednesday morning at the age of 93 following a stroke.

In the 1970s, he was a staunch supporter of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories occupied by Israel in 1967.

But later he became a proponent of a two-state solution, which includes the establishment of a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 lines.

In 1994, he received the Nobel Prize for his involvement in the short-lived peace agreement with Palestinians signed in 1993 during a White House ceremony in the presence of President Clinton.

Peres shared the prize with the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Peres served as Israel's ninth president from 2007 to 2014. He experienced almost every significant office, including two terms as prime minister, a position he held as part of coalition agreements, then foreign minister, defense minister, finance minister, chairman of the Labor Party, and opposition leader in parliament.

He also founded Israel's nuclear program which though Israel has never openly recognized. He also played a vital role in establishing the country's military and aviation industries.

In addition, he was instrumental in forging a path for the export of Israeli weapons and security equipment throughout the world. Endit