Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery died in the night of Monday in Tel Aviv. This was confirmed by a spokesman for Ichilov Hospital. The 94-year-old with German roots had suffered a stroke earlier this month and has since been in hospital. Avnery struggled all his life for a solution to the Middle East conflict and was controversial in Israel.
Uri Avnery was born on September 10, 1923 as Helmut Ostermann in Beckum, Westphalia. He grew up in Hannover, went there together with SPIEGEL founder Rudolf Augstein to school, and immigrated in 1933 with his family to Palestine. In the first Middle East war of 1948, he was badly wounded in battle.
In 1993 he founded the human rights group Gush Shalom (peace block). He was seen by many as a committed fighter for peace, others as a traitor to the Zionist cause. Even as a Member of Parliament, he had worked for his goals after 1965 in a total of three terms.
Together with his wife Rachel Avnery 2001 was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize for the founding of Gush Shalom. The teacher and photographer died in 2011.
Avnery wrote to the end of regular analyzes for the left-liberal newspaper "Haaretz" and commented on domestic political crises.