RAMAT GAN—Former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, the last of Israel’s founding fathers, was in serious condition Wednesday after suffering a major stroke and doctors were treating him in intensive care.
Nationwide concern mounted over the condition of 93-year-old Peres, widely respected as an elder statesman both in Israel and abroad, after his stroke on Tuesday.
“Mr. Peres passed the night without any other incident,” Yitzhak Kreiss, director of the Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer in Ramat Gan, told reporters outside the hospital near Tel Aviv.
“He is in a stable but still serious condition.”
Kreiss spoke in Hebrew, but when speaking in English a short time later, he described Peres’s condition as “critical.”
Peres’s personal physician and son-in-law, Raphy Walden, said that Peres was responsive when his sedation was lessened.
“He seemed to follow what we were telling him,” he said. “Next time that we try to lessen his sedation I hope that we will be able to get in touch with him.”
Kreiss had late Tuesday described Peres as having suffered a “major stroke with a component of bleeding.”
He had been sedated in the intensive care unit and was breathing with the help of a respirator.
Doctors later decided not to operate for the time being.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted the head of the hospital’s stroke unit as saying “the damage isn’t the main issue currently.”
“We’re working on getting him to a state in which his life won’t be in jeopardy,” Dr. David Orion said.
Peres’s son Chemi told journalists late Tuesday that “we are going to have to take difficult decisions apparently later, but not yet.”
“Myself and my family members are going through difficult times, difficult hours,” he said.
“I know that my father did not care about anything as much as he cares about people, as much as he cares about Israel, the Jewish people, and the people in Israel,” he said.
“And I will take this opportunity on his behalf to send all of you his love.”
The last of Israel’s founding fathers, Peres has held nearly every major office in the country, including prime minister twice and president, a mostly ceremonial post, from 2007 to 2014.
A former hawk turned dove, the highlight of his career came in 1994, when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for his role in negotiating the Oslo accords with the Palestinians.
The first of the Oslo accords was signed exactly 23 years ago Tuesday — September 13, 1993. Rabin was assassinated two years later.
Statements of concern flooded in from across the political spectrum and around 40 journalists gathered outside the hospital, Israel’s largest, awaiting word on his condition.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had spoken with the director of the hospital to receive an update, a spokesman said.
“The prime minister conveyed the prayers of the entire nation for a quick recovery,” his office said.
Netanyahu said on his twitter account: “Shimon, we all love you”.
President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement he was “following with concern the updates from the hospital, and pray together with the entire people for my friend Shimon’s recovery.”
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog also wished the elder statesman a rapid recovery.
Nickolay Mladenov, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said he was praying for Peres, calling him “a patriarch of peace and progress.”
In January, Peres was hospitalised twice for heart trouble.
In the first instance, the hospital said he had suffered a “mild cardiac event” and underwent catheterisation to widen an artery.
