World leaders are gathering in Israel to pay tributes to Shimon Peres

Tons of world leaders are gathering in Israel to pay tributes among the country’s founding fathers, to Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday aged 93.

Mr Peres’ state funeral will be held in Jerusalem.

A huge security operation in preparation has thus far generated the “preventative arrests” of several folks.
Guests comprise the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who will visit with Israel for the first time since 2010.

The Israeli news website Haaretz reported the visit comes at the request of Mr Abbas.

As a negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), he was one of the individuals who signed the

Oslo peace accords in 1993, for which Mr Peres won a Nobel Peace Prize the year after, along with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.

A senior Palestinian official told the Associated Press news agency that Mr Abbas wanted to “send a powerful message to Israeli society that the Palestinians are for peace, and value the attempts of peaceful guys like Shimon Peres”.