Doctors carried out emergency stomach surgery on Israel's coma-stricken Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday after warning that he was in danger of losing his fight for life.
A spokeswoman for the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where Sharon has been treated since suffering a massive brain hemorrhage on Jan. 4, confirmed that the operation had been wrapped up after around four hours.
"The operation has finished," Yael Bossem Levy told reporters outside Hadassah.
A hospital spokesman last night described Sharon's condition as serious, but stable.
"His condition worsened this morning. He underwent a CT scan of the abdomen which showed severe damage to his digestive system. We will have further information after the operation is completed," hospital spokesman Ron Krumer said.
Doctors have been gradually trying to bring Sharon out of the medically-induced coma in the last five weeks, although there is widespread acceptance that he will never return to high office.
Although he initially moved his limbs in response to pain stimulus tests, there have been no reports of progress in the past few weeks.
Since his collapse, Ehud Olmert has stepped in as acting prime minister and Israelis are growing accustomed to political life without Sharon, focused more on the prospect of a Hamas-run government in the Palestinian territories and next month's election in Israel.
When Sharon, one of the most popular prime ministers in Israel's history although he has a controversial military record, suffered his massive brain hemorrhage, the nation ground to a halt.
Five weeks later, politics and national preoccupations have moved on.
Despite accusations that the centrist party Kadima that Sharon founded before his collapse was little more than a one-man band, it remains ahead of its rivals in the opinion polls.
Olmert is generally seen as having made a smooth and confident start after assuming the reins of power, despite having had to confront the unexpected Israeli nightmare: the prospect of a government on its doorstep committed to its destruction.
He has already begun making his own major policy decisions and statements, taking on hardline settlers by ordering the destruction of an unauthorized Jewish outpost in the occupied West Bank and pledging to retain control over major settlement blocs.
Earlier this month, Kadima unveiled its list of candidates for Israel's election. Sharon, who left the Likud party he helped found amid feuding over the historic Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip last summer, was not included.
A recent opinion poll forecast that Kadima would win 42 of the 120 Knesset seats, almost double that of its nearest rival, the Labour party.
"Sharon has left the political scene. From now on that's a fact, but one month after his stroke his party has not weakened at all," said political scientist Yaron Ezrachi of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "It is clear today that the majority of the population will vote for his ideas and for someone who is seen as the best political heir, Ehud Olmert."
Olmert however has little of the clout, both politically and within the defense establishment, that Sharon built up during the course of a career that took in all of Israel's wars as well as holding the major offices of state.
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