Israel's Peres collapses, recovers in hospital

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-13 10:52

Israel's Peres collapses, recovers in hospital
Israeli President Shimon Peres smiles as he answers a journalist's question during a news conference with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo in this July 7, 2009 file photo. Peres collapsed during a ceremony in Tel Aviv on September 12, 2009. [Agencies]

TEL AVIV: Israeli President Shimon Peres was taken to hospital late on Saturday after briefly passing out during a ceremony in Tel Aviv, but aides said the 86-year-old Nobel peace laureate was recovering well and was in no danger.

His personal physician was quoted as saying Peres collapsed after standing for a long time in the summer evening heat but that he was later able to talk normally and would probably return to work after a night under observation in hospital.

A spokeswoman for Peres, whose post as head of state is largely ceremonial, said he had recovered all his faculties but would probably cancel some engagements. It was not now clear whether he would make a meeting on Sunday with US President Barack Obama's visiting Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell.

"The president apparently suffered a drop in blood pressure," spokeswoman Ayelet Frisch said. "He is now fully functional and his personal doctor ran a series of tests which were normal," she told Israeli television. "We can relax now. I've spoken to him and he's fully conscious."

"Work Tomorrow"

Peres's personal doctor Rafi Valdan, who is also the president's son-in-law, told the YNet news website: "I expect he'll be back at work tomorrow."

Explaining the collapse, Valdan said: "It was very hot and he was standing for a long time and began to feel weak.

"He fainted for a few seconds. Now he feels fine, is smiling and speaking on the phone to everyone."

The Polish-born former prime minister is a veteran of Israeli left-of-centre politics, with a career going back before the founding of the Jewish state in 1948.

As foreign minister, along with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Peres won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for reaching a series of ground-breaking interim accords.

He was elected president by parliament in 2007. In that capacity, he has continued to speak out in the cause of peace with the Palestinians and other Arab neighbours, although his interim deal has yet to produce a final peace settlement.