TEL AVIV (Dispatches) – The occupying regime of Israel’s ex-president Shimon Peres died on Wednesday, some two weeks after suffering a major stroke.
The 93-year-old died in his sleep at around 3:00am (0000 GMT), Peres' doctor Rafi Walden, who is also Peres's son-in-law, told AFP news agency.  
His funeral was set for Friday at Mount Herzl, a cemetery in Jerusalem Al-Quds.
The Israeli foreign ministry said that U.S. President Barack Obama, former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his wife and current presidential hopeful Hillary, the pope and the UK's Prince Charles are among those who will attend Peres' funeral.
Obama described Peres as "our dear friend" and "the essence of Israel itself."
Many across the world, however, would remember Peres as a "war criminal" especially in light of the 1996 Qana massacre. In that Israeli attack on a southern Lebanese village, at least 106 people were killed. Peres was then prime minister.
Born in Poland in 1923, Peres emigrated to what was then British-mandated Palestine when he was 11. He joined the Zionist movement and met David Ben-Gurion, who would become his mentor and the occupying regime of Israel's first prime minister.
Peres became director general of the nascent war ministry at just 29. He was also seen as a driving force in the development of the Zionist regime’s undeclared nuclear program.
Palestinians say Peres has their blood on his hands. Like other Zionist leaders, Peres also allowed Israeli settlement construction to take place in Palestinian land during his years in leadership positions.
In the Gaza Strip, the ruling Hamas militant group called Peres "the last remaining Israeli official who founded the occupation."
"His death is the end of a phase in the history of this occupation and the beginning of a new phase of weakness." said Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the group.
There was little official reaction from elsewhere in the Arab world.
There was no immediate comment from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. However, he did eventually send his condolences to Peres’s family, describing him as a partner in peace.
His message appeared to conflict with the data-x-items published by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, under the direct authority of Abbas, which documented Peres’ "aggression.”
Al-Manar, a Lebanese satellite television station affiliated with Hezbollah, described Peres as a criminal, stating that he "will be forgotten since the world is better off without criminals.”