Shimon Peres funeral: World leaders gather in Israel

Mr Peres' state funeral will be held in Jerusalem later on Friday.

A massive security operation in preparation has so far led to the "preventative arrests" of several people.

Guests include the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who will visit Israel for the first time since 2010.

The Israeli news website Haaretz reported that 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.

A senior Palestinian official told the Associated Press news agency that Mr Abbas wanted to "send a strong message to Israeli society that the Palestinians are for peace, and appreciate the efforts of peaceful men like Shimon Peres".

But a spokesman for Hamas, the more hardline Palestinian group which runs Gaza, called on Mr Abbas to "retract his decision to participate in the funeral of the criminal Shimon Peres".

Mr Peres' reputation in the region is complicated by the 1996 shelling of Qana in southern Lebanon that killed more than 100 people who were sheltering in a UN compound.

It happened when he was prime minister. He later said it was a "bitter surprise" to find that several hundred people were in the camp at the time.

Only one country in the Middle East - Jordan - is sending an official representative.

Mr Peres' reputation in the region is complicated by the 1996 shelling of Qana in southern Lebanon that killed more than 100 people who were sheltering in a UN compound.

It happened when he was prime minister. He later said it was a "bitter surprise" to find that several hundred people were in the camp at the time.

Only one country in the Middle East - Jordan - is sending an official representative.

Other world dignitaries who are attending include:

Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister, Australia

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister, Canada

Donald Tusk, President, European Council

Francois Holland, President, France

Joachim Gauck, President, Germany

Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister, Italy

Gen Nakatani, former Defence Minister, Japan

Jawad Anani, senior minister, Jordan

Enrique Pena Nieto, President, Mexico

Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General, Nato

Mark Rutte, Prime Minister, the Netherlands

Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the upper house of parliament, Russia

King Felipe VI, Spain

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations

Who was Shimon Peres?

Born in 1923 in Wisniew, Poland, now Vishnyeva, Belarus

First elected to the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in 1959

Served in 12 governments, including once as president and twice as prime minister

Seen as a hawk in his early years, when he negotiated arms deals for the fledgling nation

In 1996 he ordered the so-called Operation Grapes of Wrath operation against Beirut in retaliation for Lebanese Hezbollah's escalated rocket fire on northern Israel. The bombing campaign killed and injured hundreds of civilians

A member of the government that approved the building of Jewish settlements on occupied territory, but came to view their future as negotiable

Played a key part in reaching the Oslo peace accords, the first deal between Israel and the Palestinians, which said they would "strive to live in peaceful coexistence"

(BBC)