Ariel Sharon was clinging to life in the intensive care unit of a Jerusalem hospital today after suffering a massive stroke that looks certain to end his domination of Israeli politics and could leave the Middle East peace process in turmoil.
The 77-year-old warrior-politician suffered a brain haemorrhage while being taken to hospital from his ranch in the southern Negev Desert last night after complaining of feeling unwell. Doctors operated twice overnight to stop the bleeding around his brain before transferring him to intensive care.
The Israeli Prime Minister could remain under sedation for the next 72 hours, hospital officials said. Dr Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the director of the Hadassah hospital, said that Mr Sharon would remain in deep sedation and on a respirator to decrease pressure in his skull.
Hospital officials have defended the Prime Minister's treatment with blood thinner after his initial stroke on December 18, saying he was given appropriate doses. Doctors had suggested that the blood-thinning medication may have increased the risk of haemorrhage. Cerebral haemorrhages can result either from rupture of blood vessels or leaking because of too much blood-thinning medication.
Mr Sharon's deputy, Ehud Olmert, was named as acting Prime Minister and held an emergency Cabinet session at 9am (0700GMT), just as Mr Sharon was coming out of surgery. Mr Olmert can hold the post for 100 days; close Sharon associates said that they did not expect the Prime Minister to return to office.
"This is a difficult situation that we are not accustomed to," Mr Olmert told the sombre ministers while Mr Sharon's chair at the centre of the long oval table remained empty.
After the meeting, Meir Sheetrit, Transport Minister, and a member of Mr Sharon's new Kadima party, told reporters: "The Prime Minister is fighting for his life."
Mr Olmert has spoken on the phone with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, the Israeli media reported today. It was the first high-level contact between Israelis and Palestinians since Mr Sharon's latest stroke. Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian Prime Minister, sent a letter to Mr Olmert wishing Mr Sharon well in what one called Israeli newspaper called "the final battle".
Even if Mr Sharon survives his most serious health crisis - he suffered a minor cerebral stroke only two and a half weeks ago - his political demise throws Israeli politics and regional diplomacy into turmoil in the midst of elections for both the Palestinians and Israelis. Mr Sharon had been expected easily to win re-election in March at the head of Kadima.
Many Israelis see Mr Sharon, a longtime hawk who changed tack and pushed through the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last year, as the best hope for achieving a long-term peace deal with the Palestinians.
President Bush said in a written statement that he was praying for the Israeli leader’s recovery. "Prime Minister Sharon is a man of courage and peace," Mr Bush said. "On behalf of all Americans, we send our best wishes and hopes to the Prime Minister and his family."
The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, also paid tribute to Mr Sharon during a visit to Beirut. "This man is a man not only of great political courage but of astonishing physical courage and resilience as well," Mr Straw said. "He’s already had a huge effect on the region."
Mr Sharon had formed Kadima to escape the straitjacket of the right-wing activists in Likud who had dogged his every step through the withdrawal from Gaza last summer.
Polls predicted two days ago that Kadima would win most seats in the Knesset, but political analysts said that the party was a "one-man band" whose fortunes could dip dramatically without Mr Sharon.
If the new party were to lose him before the election, they said, support could drop by as much as a third, immediately changing the face of Israeli politics.
Kadima’s popularity derived much from Mr Sharon’s strength of character and the hints that he would build on his Gaza withdrawal to set Israel’s borders with the Palestinians and make a concerted effort to reach a final settlement and resolve the conflict.
The main Arab television channels interrupted their programming with news of Mr Sharon’s condition, with al-Jazeera, and even Hamas’s Al Manar station in Beirut hosting live specials monitoring his progress.
Anwar Abu Taha, of Beirut's Islamic Jihad faction, said: "We in Islamic Jihad and all Palestinians have no sympathy for any Zionists whatever . . . Sharon conducted massacres and we have no sympathy."
In Ramallah people rushed to the streets in celebration on hearing of Mr Sharon’s condition. Cars were honking horns and gunmen shot in the air and called others to join their celebrations. "The region will be a better place without Sharon. The world is on the verge of being rid of one of its worst leaders," said a Hamas spokesman.
"I am following with great concern and share the concern of the Israeli people about the prime minister’s health," Mr Qureia said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Prime Minister Sharon, the Israeli government and people. We wish the Prime Minister a full and quick recovery."
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said Mr Sharon’s exit from the political scene transform the rules of the game and could provoke an escalation of violence. "When that happens, it will shake everything up in Israel from top to bottom," he said. "The Palestinian people risk being made to pay the price of the battle for power in Israel with an intensification of settlements and assassinations."
Scores of Mr Sharon's well-wishers flocked this morning to the Hadassah hospital, perched over a picturesque valley on the western outskirts of Jersualem.
"I’m in shock. It is a real disaster which puts a question mark over the future of the state of Israel," said Michael Magdish, a 40-year-old Jerusalem lawyer. "In the last few, we moved forwards hugely because of him, despite the fact that part of what he did was very painful."
Even those angered by Mr Sharon’s political epiphany, which saw the first-ever Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian land in the Gaza Strip, were shocked and dismayed by his collapse.
"Even though he did difficult things, the people love him," says Netanel Tahero, who comes from a moshav, or agricultural collective, near Jerusalem. "In our moshav, everyone is crying. They are all in the synagogue praying for him."
"I don’t know what will happen now," he added. "It will be very difficult for people without a shepherd."
