Peres discharged from hospital after collapse
TEL AVIV – Israeli President Shimon Peres was discharged from hospital on Sunday with a clean bill of health, a day after the 86-year-old Nobel peace laureate passed out briefly at a ceremony.
I can say to everyone that we have a president who is dynamic, young at heart and physically healthy, said Dr. Zeev Rothstein, director of Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv where Peres was kept for observation overnight.
Peres fainted at the podium during a public appearance in Tel Aviv late on Saturday. Doctors said he was apparently overcome by the heat.
He quickly regained consciousness after medics rushed to his side, but his personal physician, who is also his son-in-law, insisted he go to hospital.
Rothstein told Israeli radio stations that tests showed that Peres was in excellent condition. The octogenarian maintains a busy schedule that includes frequent speaking engagements in Israel and official visits abroad.
Peres, whose role is ceremonial, was expected to resume much of his daily routine, including a planned meeting later on Sunday with U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East peace envoy, George Mitchell, doctors and aides said.
President Peres is feeling very well this morning, his personal physician, Rafi Valdan, told Reuters shortly before Peres left hospital.
The Polish-born former prime minister is a veteran of Israeli left-of-center politics, with a career going back to 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 neighbors, although his interim deal has yet to produce a final peace settlement.
(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan)
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