BICOM

The President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) has paid tribute to Israel’s former President, sending his family a letter of condolence.

The PA’s official news agency Wafa reported that Mahmoud Abbas expressed his “sadness and sorrow” in the letter.

Abbas is quoted as saying: “Peres was a partner in making the brave peace with the martyr Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister [Yitzhak] Rabin, and made unremitting efforts to reach a lasting peace from the Oslo agreement until the final moments of his life.”

Both Peres and Abbas were signatories to the Oslo Accords during the 1990s. In 2014, they both travelled to Rome to participate in a prayer session for peace alongside Pope Francis

However, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri claimed: “The Palestinian people are happy at the death of this criminal.”

He told AFP: “Shimon Peres was one of the last Israeli founders of occupation. His death marks the end of an era in the history of the Israeli occupation.”

In what appeared a contradictory opinion, Israel’s Army Radio quoted Hamas media saying: “Although he [Peres] was one of the builders of the settlements, he became one of the prominent advocates of peace and spoke frequently about the need for concessions”.

The Hezbollah-affiliated television station al-Manar said that Peres “will be forgotten since the world is better off without criminals”.

Meanwhile, in the wider Arab world, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expressed “deep sorrow and grief” over Peres’s death, calling him “a dove of peace in the region”. Israel Radio reports this morning that Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry will attend Peres’s funeral tomorrow in Jerusalem.

However, there was no official response to Peres’s passing from Jordan which, like Egypt, enjoys a peace treaty with Israel. Nor has there been confirmation of representation from Jordan for tomorrow’s funeral.