Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk dead at 73

July 26 (UPI) -- Martin Indyk , an Australia-born former U.S. ambassador died, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which he helped found, announced. He was 73 years old.

Indyk died Thursday at his home in Connecticut, the institute announced . Indyk's wife, Gahl Hodges Burt, said the cause of death was complications related to esophageal cancer.

Indyk served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton and later served as a special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under President Barack Obama .

"Martin Indyk was an extraordinarily skilled diplomat who, no matter the obstacles, never gave up on the prospect of peace," Clinton said on X.

"I'll always be deeply grateful for the important role he played in my Administration's efforts to end the conflict in the Middle East. The world would be better off if there were a lot more people like him."

Indyk's successor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Dr. Robert Satloff, remembered him as "a true American success story."

"A native of Australia, he came to Washington to have an impact on the making of American Middle East policy and that he surely did -- as pioneering scholar, insightful analyst and remarkably effective policy entrepreneur," Satloff said.

Indyk came from a Jewish family in Australia but relocated his family to the United States after graduating with a Ph.D. in international relations from the Australian National University. In 1985 he helped found the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"He was a visionary who not only founded an organization based on the idea that wise public policy is rooted in sound research, he embodied it. His contributions to the growth and development of The Washington Institute -- and to the definition and execution of U.S. Middle East policy, more generally -- are both legendary and immeasurable," Satloff said in the statement.

President Joe Biden called Indyk an "essential" part of the Oslo Accords, a pair of agreements signed in 1993 and 1995 in an attempt to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian people inhabiting the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

"As a member of President Clinton's National Security Council and two-time U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Martin played an essential role in the Oslo Accords and the follow-on negotiations -- the closest that Israelis and Palestinians have ever come to making peace," Biden said in a statement issued by the White House.

"He and I worked together during the Obama-Biden Administration when Martin served as Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations - the last time the two parties engaged seriously on final status negotiations."

Indyk remained vocal on social media, last posting in late June. In May, he published a series of posts critical of Israel's handling of the current situation in Gaza.

"I never thought I'd live to see this day when Israel's government rejected a full-fledged offer of peace from Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds. Wake up Israel! Your government is leading you into ever greater isolation and ruin," he posted on May 22.