Israeli author Amos Oz has died of cancer at the age of 79.
ADVERTISEMENTIsraeli novelist Amos Oz has died of cancer at the age of 79, his daughter said on Friday.
"My beloved father died of cancer, just now, after a rapid decline, in his sleep and tranquillity," Fania Oz-Salzberger wrote on Twitter. "To those who love him, thank you."
"Rest in peace, dear Amos," Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement. "You gave us great pleasure."
One of Israel's best known and most acclaimed writers, Oz was born in Jerusalem to Eastern European immigrants. He moved to a kibbutz at 15 after his mother committed suicide.
Over a 50-year career, Oz published some 40 books, including 14 novels, two children's books and a dozen collections of essays. The list of his literary awards includes the French Legion of Honour, Germany's Goethe Prize, the Primo Levi Prize and Israel's Prize for Literature, among many others.
In 2015, a film adaptation of his novel 'A Tale of Love and Darkness', directed by Natalie Portman, opened at the Cannes Film Festival.
Oz was an early supporter of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict and a founder of the Israeli peace movement, Peace Now. In 2006 he supported the Second Lebanon War and, in 2008, Israeli action against Hamas in Gaza.
In a 2010 New York Times editorial advocating a peace agreement with Palestine, Oz wrote:
"Every attempt to use force not as a preventive measure, not in self-defence, but instead as a means of smashing problems and squashing ideas, will lead to more disasters."