Sharon 'recovering' after suffering mild stroke
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon underwent additional tests and evaluations in a Jerusalem hospital today after suffering a mild stroke.
He conferred with aides and was able to walk around his room and shower unattended.
Doctors said his condition improved quickly, and aides said he was in control of the government.
“I saw him this morning. My impression is that he feels excellent,” Cabinet Secretary Israel Maimon told Army Radio from Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where Sharon is being treated.
Maimon said he and Military Secretary Gadi Shamni briefed Sharon in the hospital, and that the prime minister joked with aides, and was able to walk around his room and shower by himself.
“I hope he will be released soon,” Maimon said.
Maimon said Sharon was taken to the hospital after aides sensed confusion in his speech. Doctors said the prime minister never lost consciousness and was talking and joking with his family hours after he arrived in the hospital yesterday evening. He was treated with blood thinners and suffered no damage from the stroke, said Boleslaw Goldman, Sharon’s personal doctor.
“He’s lucid, he’s fully functional,” said Sharon aide Raanan Gissin. Aides said he would be in the hospital for a few days.
Sharon, 77 and very overweight, has been a political fixture of Israeli politics for more than three decades. His illness comes a little more than three months before he is to lead his new Kadima Party into national elections, and his illness could hamper his efforts to finish building the nascent centrist faction, which has a commanding lead in the polls.
The stroke was almost certain to make Sharon’s health a major campaign issue, but it would have little immediate effect on Israeli policy or peace efforts, since no major decisions were expected during the campaign.
The website of the Haaretz daily newspaper reported that one of its reporters spoke to Sharon late last night.
“I’m fine,” Haaretz quoted Sharon as saying. “Apparently I should have taken a few days off for vacation. But we’re continuing to move forward,” he said, making a play on the name of his party, Kadima, which means “forward”.
Sharon received get well messages from Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and US envoy Elliot Abrams, who was speaking on behalf of the US government, Gissin said.
In Gaza, however, dozens of armed men from the Popular Resistance Committees, a small Palestinian militant group, fired guns in the air, screamed “Sharon is dead” and handed out pastries to motorists on the streets of Gaza City in celebration of the news that Sharon was ill.
Palestinian militants view Sharon, who led Israel’s fight against the five-year Palestinian uprising, as a hated enemy, despite his pullout from the Gaza Strip earlier this year.
Sharon grew weak and confused yesterday evening soon after a meeting with former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who is supporting the new Kadima party in the forthcoming election. The premier was immediately rushed to the hospital in his official vehicle and he was taken directly to the emergency room, media reports said. Sharon’s sons, Omri and Gilad, rushed to the hospital to be by his side.
“Initial checks showed he had a mild stroke. and during checks his condition improved. He was always conscious and didn’t need any surgical intervention,” said Yuval Weiss, deputy director of the hospital.
Goldman, Sharon’s personal doctor, was certain the prime minister would fully recover.
“Unequivocally, there is no damage,” Goldman, said. “He had anticoagulant treatment. He will need to be in the hospital for a few days.”
If Sharon was incapacitated, Vice Premier Ehud Olmert, a close Sharon ally, would take over the day-to-day running of the government.
But Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon said that would not be necessary.
“Because the prime minister is functioning and communicating and talking, there is no relevance to the question of who will act in his place,” he told reporters. ”He himself asked to be released tonight to go home, and the doctors suggested he stay under observation.”
Sharon, a former army general, was elected prime minister in 2001, months after the beginning of nearly five years of Israel-Palestinian violence. Sharon led the Israeli crackdown on the Palestinian uprising. Then he led Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank last summer, after 38 years of occupation.
Following the Gaza pullout, Sharon threw the Israeli political map into disarray as he prepared to run for a third term in office in March 28 elections.
Sharon split from the Likud Party, which he helped found three decades ago, to form Kadima, saying that his old party had become too extreme.
Polls show that Sharon’s new party – which includes more than a dozen former Likud lawmakers – would finish far ahead of other parties, all but guaranteeing he would form the next government and remain prime minister for a third term. However, the party is built around Sharon, and if he were to be incapacitated, it would almost certainly suffer a blow in the polls.
Sharon’s health and age have always lurked in the background of his term as prime minister. The ex-army general has never released his medical records but has insisted in recent years that he is not suffering from any serious ailments.
