Burglaries, car thefts and other crimes have more than halved since Israelis began gluing themselves to television sets for news on the health of Ariel Sharon, their ailing Prime Minister.

Doctors treating Mr Sharon said today that they had detected a slight improvement in his brain function as they try to rouse him gradually from a medically-induced coma.

Dr Shlomo Mor-Yosef, director of the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, said that Mr Sharon had moved his left hand for the first time and had managed to move his right arm and leg more than in an initial stimulus test on Monday. "These are neurological changes that show a slight progress in the brain function of the prime minister, Ariel Sharon," he said.

Mr Sharon’s anaesthetist, Yoram Weiss, added: "The Prime Minister’s condition is serious but there is no immediate danger to the Prime Minister’s life."

Mr Sharon suffered a massive haemmorhagic stroke last Wednesday night as he was being taken by ambulance to the Hadassah hospital from his ranch in the southern Negev desert.

Doctors operated for more than eight hours to save his life, and he underwent more emergency surgery on Friday after a brain scan showed swelling and more bleeding.

The stroke came only a few weeks after he left the Likud party, which he helped form in 1973, to set up a new party called Kadima, which immediately took an opinion poll lead on a platform of phased withdrawal from Palestinian-claimed territories.

Mr Sharon will no longer be able to contest elections scheduled for March, although his allies in Kadima hope to keep the momentum building for the new party.

Since his stroke, Mr Sharon's condition has received blanket news coverage, and police said today that they had seen a large drop in crime.

"We have seen a fall of more than 50 percent in offences since Mr Sharon was admitted to the Hadassah," said Mickey Rosenfeld, a police spokesman.

n the first three days after Mr Sharon's stroke only 865 burglaries were reported, compared to 1,739 in the corresponding period last year. Police attributed the fall to the fact that householders and would-be burglars have been preoccupied with their Prime Minister’s fight for life.

"It’s obviously more difficult to break into a house while the owner is stuck in front of the television," one police source told the Maariv daily. "But it’s also possible that some of the burglars have themselves decided to stay in to follow Mr Sharon’s health."

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