The Financial Times, Telegraph and i report the death overnight Tuesday of Israel’s former-President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres, aged 93. Peres, who was considered to be Israel’s elder statesman and the last of a generation of founding fathers, suffered a massive stroke two weeks ago. The Telegraph includes a tribute from Prime Minister Theresa May, who described Peres as a “visionary and courageous statesman”.

The Daily Express reports on the response from British leaders, including the Queen who said that she is “greatly saddened” by Peres’s death.

Meanwhile, an outpouring of affection and admiration from global leaders is covered by the Sun, Metro, Evening Standard, Daily Star and Daily Mirror, which highlights comments by US President Barack Obama, who described Peres as “the essence of Israel”.

The Times and Guardian report on plans for Peres’s funeral tomorrow, which is set to be attended by a long list of world leaders, including President Obama, Prince Charles and Prime Minister Theresa May, alongside France’s Prime Minister Hollande and Germany’s Chancellor Merkel. Peres’ body will lie in state today in the plaza of the Knesset to allow the Israeli public to pay their respects.

Obituaries for Peres are published this morning in the Telegraph, Times and Guardian. Writing a comment piece in the Telegraph, Israel’s former-Ambassador to the UK and United Nations (UN), Ron Prosor calls Peres “a giant who oversaw the birth of a state, and always believed in a brighter future”.

In the i, Robert Fisk recalls what he calls Peres’s “bloody legacy at Qana,” referring to an incident during Peres’ premiership in 1996. Israel fired shells during a skirmish with Hezbollah, which it said mistakenly hit a UN compound in southern Lebanon, killing 106 people.

In the Telegraph, Stephen Pollard says that Peres’ legacy of peace remains unfulfilled, noting that “things haven’t been helped by the inept foreign policy of the Obama administration”.

Meanwhile, the Times online reports that in Syria President Assad’s troops have launched a four-front attack on Aleppo. The Independent online says that air strikes have hit two major Aleppo hospitals, while another Independent report says that US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned that contacts with Moscow will be cut unless such strikes by Russian and Syrian jets cease.
The Israeli media is almost entirely dominated with the death of Shimon Peres, comment on his life and preparations for his funeral tomorrow. The front pages of Yediot Ahronot, Maariv and Haaretz all lead with almost identical headlines, “Farewell, Shimon Peres 1923-2016.” Israel Hayom, which devotes its first thirty pages to Peres leads with the headline “The world says farewell to Peres”.

Israel Radio news says that former-US President Bill Clinton will be the first foreign dignitary to arrive in Israel this morning. Israel’s busiest motorway, Route One, which connects Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, will be closed intermittently today and tomorrow as VIPs arrive in the country. Another Israel Radio news report says that Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry will attend tomorrow’s funeral, but that no representation from Jordan has yet been confirmed.

There is plenty of reflection on Peres’s life in this morning’s dailies. In Yediot Ahronot, the celebrated writer Amos Oz says that Peres was “certainly a man of dreams that were both naïve and sophisticated, but his dreams came true far more often than the doubts harboured by many others…. The man was brimming with curiosity, he inspired curiosity, and I loved him”.