JERUSALEM — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has received permission to attend the funeral on Friday of former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres, according to Israeli authorities.

Abbas sent a formal request to attend the service to Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the military chief of the occupied West Bank, who coordinates government activities in the territories.

The Israelis gave their permission Thursday afternoon. The Associated Press quoted an unnamed Palestinian official who said Abbas would attend. Another senior official cautioned that whether Abbas will attend was still being discussed by a senior member of his government and his political party.

The state funeral for Peres is expected to be one of the largest in Israel since the 1995 burial of Yitzak Rabin, the prime minister who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist who opposed the efforts of Rabin and Peres to make peace with the Palestinians by giving up land for a state.

Yasser Arafat, who was the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, did not attend Rabin's funeral in Jerusalem, although the two men and Peres had shared a stage to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. Instead, Arafat met privately with the Rabin family.

On Thursday, thousands of ordinary Israelis, alongside diplomats, political leaders and a former U.S. president, climbed the hill to the Israel parliament to pay their respects before the flag-draped casket of Peres, one of last of the original founders of the Jewish state.

Former president Bill Clinton landed in Tel Aviv and before checking into his hotel came to the Knesset to stand quietly for a moment where Peres was lying in state.

President Barack Obama is expected to land in Israel early Friday for the funeral. The U.S. delegation also will include a dozen members of Congress and leaders of the U.S. Jewish community.

"He was the man who wrote the story of Israel," said Devora Siegel, 32, a teacher in Jerusalem who brought along three students to the plaza outside the parliament.

"He did a lot for our country," said one of her 13-year-old students, named Sophie. "He fought for us."

The 93-year-old former prime minister, Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize winner died at a Tel Aviv hospital before dawn Wednesday from complications of a massive stroke suffered two weeks earlier.

In addition to Obama, the Israel foreign ministry reports that the national leaders and dignitaries who are expected to attend the Friday funeral include French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck, Britain's Prince Charles, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, former British prime minister David Cameron, European Union President Donald Tusk, and still unnamed representatives of governments of Jordan and Egypt.