President Obama will head to Israel Thursday to attend Friday morning’s funeral service for former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who died Tuesday.
Obama was widely expected to make the trip, which the White House formalized Wednesday afternoon.
The unplanned trip will be brief. Obama is slated to return Friday night.
Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as Israel’s president from 2007-14, died at age 93 on Tuesday, two weeks after suffering a massive stroke. World leaders have praised Peres for the central role he played in Israel’s founding and his relentless pursuit of a two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians.
