Photo: AP
Dozens of world leaders are gathering in Israel to pay tributes to Shimon Peres, one of the country’s founding fathers, who died on Wednesday aged 93.
A funeral procession is en route to the national cemetery in Jerusalem, where Mr Peres will be laid to rest.
Guests include the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who will visit Israel for the first time since 2010.
The visit comes at the request of Mr Abbas.
As a negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), he was one of the people who signed the Oslo peace accords in 1993, for which Mr Peres won a Nobel Peace Prize the year after, along with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.