Guests included the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is visiting Israel for the first time since 2010, U.S. President, Barrack Obama, Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton with her husband, among others, who gathered at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl cemetery.
There has been tight security in Israel ahead of the state funeral of the former prime minister, Shimon Peres.
Israeli police chief Roni Alsheikh said preventative arrests were carried out on Arab and Jewish suspects who they feared might disrupt the ceremony.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, led the series of eulogies, as he delivered his emotional address.
He described the former Isreali leader as “a great man of the world” adding that even as the world grieves his death, he had “left behind a true legacy of hope”.
shimon peres funeral
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who helped negotiate the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990’s that led to a Nobel Peace Prize for Shimon Peres, also described him as Israel’s “biggest dreamer”.
President Obama, who shared a close friendship with the deceased, expressed grief while also praising his optimism.
Peres had fostered ties with him, that went beyond bilateral interests as he appeared to be more in synch with Obama’s vision of global politics and regional peace than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He praised his optimism saying “It is that faith, that optimism, that belief, even when all the evidence to the contrary that tomorrow will be better, that makes us not only honor Shimon but love him.
Thousands of Israelis passed by his coffin outside the Knesset (parliament) throughout Thursday, to pay their last respects.
INSIDE THE STORY
Police shut roads in central Jerusalem as former Israeli president, who died at 93, was laid to rest.
Shimon Peres, the Israeli elder statesman, has been laid to rest in Jerusalem in a ceremony that brought together several world leaders.
US President Barack Obama, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck and other world leaders were among those who attended the funeral on Friday.
Speaking at the ceremony, Obama said: "I could not be more honoured to be in Jerusalem to say farewell to my friend Shimon Peres, who showed us that justice and hope are at the heart of the zionist idea."
The US leader, who wore the traditional Jewish kippah cap, said that the attendance of Abbas was a gesture "and reminder of the unfinished business of peace".
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said of the tributes for Peres: "We need to separate between fact and fiction. A lot of things being said today are fiction, or selective.
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"The facts are ... illegal settlements that he said should be mushrooming everywhere went up by 50 percent after he signed a deal with the Palestinians."
Bishara added: "Palestinian leaders - after 25 years of peace process - are allowed to enter Jerusalem, only when an Israeli dies.
"President Abbas, for the last 20 years, has not been allowed to enter the future capital of the Palestinian state, where some 250,000 Palestinians live - in Jerusalem.
"The only time he is allowed is when an Israeli dies and he has to pay his final respects. He needs to get a permit from the Israelis in order to do that. Who instituted that permit? Peres."
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The United States delegation includes former President Bill Clinton, who also spoke, Secretary of State John Kerry, about 20 members of Congress and several administration officials.
Police closed roads in central Jerusalem beofre the funeral. It is expected to be Israel's largest since that of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was killed by a Jewish nationalist in 1995.
Peres, who served as president and acting prime minister, died early on Wednesday, two weeks after suffering a stroke. He was 93.
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