Former Israel president Yitzhak Navon dies

Yitzhak Navon, who served as Israel's president between 1978 and 1983, has died aged 94.

Yitzhak Navon, who served as Israel's fifth president, has died aged 94. (AAP)

Yitzhak Navon, who served as Israel's fifth president, has died aged 94.

Navon, who died on Saturday, was a top aide to Israel's founding father David Ben-Gurion and later embarked on a political career in the Labor Party.

He served as president between 1978 and 1983 and had a lengthy term as education minister. He quit politics in 1992 and became a successful author and playwright.

Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog remembered Navon as a member of Israel's founding generation who "built our national home with their own hands."

Centrist Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid called him a "moderating, embracing, respecting voice that is so missing these days."

Navon was born in Jerusalem to a Sephardi family descended from Spanish Jews expelled in the inquisition of 1492.