A source at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem said that at one stage doctors did not expect Sharon, 77, to survive the day. His sons Omri and Gilad rushed to the hospital where they were joined by several senior aides.
However, Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the hospital director, said later that the operation — Sharon’s seventh since the stroke — had gone well and that his life was not in immediate danger. Sharon remained in a stable but critical condition last night.
“The main problem is not this operation, but recovering from his stroke,” said Mor-Yosef. “The dramatic event this morning will not help him recover and is not a good sign.”
Extensive bleeding in Sharon’s brain at the time of the stroke and the series of operations that he underwent to stop it have led experts to conclude he must have suffered severe brain damage. He is hooked up to breathing and feeding tubes.
Doctors took him back into the operating theatre for four more hours of surgery yesterday after a scan revealed that blood had stopped flowing to parts of his intestines. His condition was described as the worst yet and although doctors do not rule out the possibility that he will awaken from the coma, they say the chances recede with each passing day.
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Sharon’s illness has jolted Israel, which is preparing for elections on March 28. But Ehud Olmert, the interim prime minister, has stepped swiftly into Sharon’s shoes, promising to press ahead with tough security policies and threatening to set Israel’s borders unilaterally if negotiations with the Palestinians fail to make progress.
Opinion polls predict the Kadima party, founded by Sharon last year, will win the elections with Olmert at its helm.