Former Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has died

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Israeli media reported Saturday that former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, one of his nation’s most controversial and iconic leaders for a half-century — on and off the battlefield — died at the age of 85 of complications from a stroke eight years ago.

The death of Sharon, known by his nickname “Arik” to generations of Israelis, ends a tumultuous career that spanned the heights and depths of public life and Israeli history.

Sharon was a military leader who led Israeli troops against Arab armies in every war from independence in 1948 until his stroke 58 years later. He was defense minister in 1982, when Israel attacked Lebanon in an attempt to oust the Palestinian Liberation Organization and reduce Syria’s stranglehold over Lebanon. Sharon was forced to resign after Lebanese Christian militias sent into the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps to weed out the PLO murdered hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

A longtime passionate advocate of Israeli settlement of land he helped conquer from Jordan and Egypt, which Palestinians seek for a state,he forced Jewish settlers to leave Gaza in 2005, ending 38 years of military governance.

EARLY LIFE

Born to Russian immigrant parents in a farming community near Tel Aviv in 1928, Sharon joined the Jewish underground militia Haganah at age 14 to fight for Israeli independence from British rule.

He fought in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-49 and quickly rose to prominence in the new nation’s military ranks. Sharon’s career would turn out to be marked by a series of stunning highs and desperate lows that made him a figure many Israelis either adored or despised.

Sharon rose to the rank of brigadier general and commanded a division during the Six-Day War in 1967 in which Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza.