Shimon Peres

TEL AVIV – Former Israeli prime minister and founding statesman, Shimon Peres died in Tel Aviv on Wednesday aged 93, Israel Radio said.

Peres was hospitalized following a stroke two weeks ago and had made some progress before a sudden deterioration in his condition on Tuesday.

An official announcement of the death of the Nobel Peace Prize receiver and former prime minister was expected at around 7 a.m. local time. Details of the timing of the funeral were also expected.

Peres was part of almost every major development in Israel since 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 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with the late former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for reaching an interim peace deal in 1993, which never turned into a lasting treaty.

Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli ultra-nationalist who opposed the interim accords, and it was Peres who took over as prime minister after Rabin’s death.

Peres is widely seen as having gained nuclear capabilities for Israel by procuring the secret Dimona reactor from France while defense ministry director-general in the 1950’s. And as defense minister oversaw the 1976 Israeli rescue of hijacked Israelis at Entebbe airport in Uganda.

Earlier in September, after a series of health scares including a mild heart attack, Peres received an artificial pacemaker.