Sharon shows further improvement, still critical

Omri Sharon, son of ailing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, outside Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem. Picture / Reuters

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon showed further improvement today from a massive stroke, moving his left side for the first time since doctors started bringing him out of an induced coma.

Hadassah hospital director Shlomo Mor-Yosef said that while Sharon's medical team had seen slight progress as they reduced his sedation to assess brain damage, he remained in "severe, critical" condition.

But doctors said Sharon's life was in no immediate danger.

"Metaphorically speaking, we have backed five metres away from the edge of the cliff," Dr. Yoram Weiss, one of Sharon's anaesthetists, told reporters.

With Israelis keeping a nationwide vigil for the 77-year-old leader many had seen as their best hope for peace with the Palestinians, campaigning for a March 28 general election that Sharon had been favoured to win ground to a halt.

Six days after Sharon suffered his stroke, doctors still did not know how badly his faculties had been impaired, and medical experts say even if he survives he will have little chance of recovering enough to resume his duties.

Doctors said it would be several days before the sedatives wore off completely and they could start gauging Sharon's ability to think and reason. He has yet to open his eyes. "We have a long way to go and we need to be patient," Weiss said.

Another doctor said when one of Sharon's sons spoke, the prime minister's blood pressure rose. Mozart symphonies were played at his bedside in an effort to elicit a response.

Among the ways doctors hope to stimulate his senses is to place his favourite foods, including a plate of shawarma, a sliced meat dish, in his hospital room, Israel Radio said.

Talking to reporters outside the hospital, Sharon's son Omri thanked the doctors treating his father, and the Israeli people.

"I came here in the name of my family to give thanks to the citizens of Israel who since Wednesday evening have shown concern and have prayed...for my father's recovery," he said.

The loss of Sharon, who raised peace hopes by pulling settlers and troops out of Gaza in September after 38 years of occupation, would deepen uncertainty over the future of Middle East diplomacy.

Despite fears of a political vacuum in Sharon's absence, the United States has since discreetly resumed its efforts for progress between Israel and the Palestinians.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and also discussed the Middle East with other international powerbrokers. Two envoys were due in the region this week on a trip postponed after Sharon fell ill.

Sharon's surgeons say there is a good chance he will live. But the medical consensus is he has suffered too much damage ever to return to Israeli politics, an arena he has dominated like no figure since founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.

As doctors launched their effort to wean Sharon off his sedation yesterday, Sharon started breathing on his own -- though still hooked up to a respirator -- and slightly moved his right arm and leg.

Doctors said they elicited further right-side movement today and he also moved his left hand for the first time.

Sharon had been kept in a coma since last Wednesday to aid healing after surgery to stop widespread bleeding in his brain.

If doctors declare Sharon permanently incapacitated, they will pass on their finding to Israel's attorney general. The cabinet would then elect a prime minister from ministers of Sharon's Kadima party who are also parliamentarians.

Sharon's deputy, Ehud Olmert, 60, already named interim prime minister, would be expected to keep the job in the run-up to the March election.

Sharon is reviled in the Arab world but increasingly seen by the West as having opened up new prospects for peace. He suffered the stroke at a crucial juncture as he was fighting for re-election on a promise to end conflict with the Palestinians.

Palestinian leaders have voiced wishes for Sharon's recovery, and President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters on Monday he did not expect a major impact on peace efforts.

However, reflecting feelings over Sharon's handling of a five-year-old Palestinian uprising, dozens of militants marched through Gaza city, chanting "Death to Sharon".

Sharon has said military measures taken in Palestinian areas were self-defence against suicide bombings and other attacks.

Political analysts said Israel's election, which Sharon had been widely expected to win as head of his new centrist Kadima party, would become an open race without him.

But a TV opinion poll showed Olmert edging ahead as the favoured candidate over Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

- REUTERS