JERUSALEM — Former Israeli President Shimon Peres was hospitalized after having a stroke.
Peres’ office said in a statement Tuesday evening that the 93-year-old statesman “is stable and fully conscious.”
Peres, 93, was taken to Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer near Tel Aviv after telling his doctor that he felt weak.
The doctor had successfully implanted a pacemaker for Peres a week ago. Peres was diagnosed in July with atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart rhythm.
In January, Peres had a heart attack and then cardiac angioplasty to open a blocked artery. He was hospitalized twice more with chest pains.
In an interview in January with JTA, just days before his heart attack, Peres said he was busier than ever, including his work with the Peres Center for Peace, which he founded.
A month earlier, social media was flooded with rumors that Peres had died, leading him to take to Facebook to declare that rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated.
Peres, who retired as president of Israel in 2014 after more than half a century in public life, including a stint as prime minister, won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.
—JTA News and Features
