Hanna Kvanmo, 79; Member of Nobel’s Peace Prize Panel

Norway’s Hanna Kvanmo, 79, a long-serving member of the Nobel Peace Prize committee who once said she wished Shimon Peres’ award could be revoked, died Thursday in Oslo after a brief illness, according Norway’s Socialist Left Party.

Raised in the small industrial town of Rana in northern Norway, Kvanmo married young and had three children.

She returned to school in her 30s and worked as a teacher.

She was elected to Norway’s parliament in 1973 and remained a member until 1989. She was named a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in 1990 and served as the committee’s deputy chairwoman from 1993 to 1998.

She contributed to an international stir during her last year on the Nobel committee by saying she wished it were possible to revoke then-Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’ share of the 1994 prize.

Peres shared the prize with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for their peace efforts.

She accused Peres, as part of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government, of condoning Israeli military attacks in Palestinian areas.