Sharon suffers massive stroke

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was in serious condition today after all-night surgery to stop "massive bleeding" from a life-threatening stroke. Doctors said he was transferred to intensive care with stable vital signs.

"The prime minister has had a CT scan that showed the cerebral hemorrhaging has stopped," Hadassah Hospital Director Mor-Yosef said. "The prime minister is still in serious condition."

Sharon's official powers were transferred to his deputy, Ehud Olmert, who chaired a special Cabinet session today.

"This is a difficult situation that we are not accustomed to," Olmert told the somber ministers. Sharon's chair at the center of the long oval table remained empty.

Sharon fell ill at his ranch Wednesday evening and was rushed to the Jerusalem hospital, where he was diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage. Doctors began emergency surgery about midnight to stop the bleeding in his brain, working for more than seven hours, Mor-Yosef said.

Surgery apparently had been complicated by blood thinners he had been given following a mild stroke on Dec. 18, and the medication may also have contributed to Wednesday's stroke.

Mor-Yosef did not address Sharon's prognosis, but neurosurgeons not involved in Sharon's treatment said a full recovery was not likely following such a massive stroke. They said it usually takes at least a day after the surgery to determine the extent of any damage.

An ambulance brought Sharon to the Jerusalem hospital only hours before the hard-charging, overweight, 77-year-old Israeli leader had been scheduled to undergo a procedure to seal a hole in his heart that contributed to a mild stroke on Dec. 18.

Sharon's cerebral hemorrhage, or bleeding stroke, came at a time of upheaval among Palestinian factions in Gaza and in the midst of both Israeli and Palestinian election campaigns. Sharon's absence would slow momentum toward peacemaking with the Palestinians and leave a major vacuum at the head of his new Kadima party, which was expected to head a government after the March 28 vote.

In a written statement, President Bush praised Sharon as "a man of courage and peace," saying he and first lady Laura Bush "share the concerns of the Israeli people ... and we are praying for his recovery."

Israeli Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger called on Israelis to read Psalms and pray for Sharon. "We are very, very worried," he said, and prayed for "mercy from heaven."

Pan-Arab satellite television broadcasters beamed out largely straightforward, nonstop live coverage from outside the hospital where Sharon — a particularly despised figure among many Arabs — struggled for his life.

A radical Palestinian leader in Damascus, the Syrian capital, called the stroke a gift from God.

"We say it frankly that God is great and is able to exact revenge on this butcher. ... We thank God for this gift he presented to us on this new year," Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Syrian-backed faction Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a small radical group, told The Associated Press.

Speaking to reporters outside the hospital, Sharon aide Raanan Gissin warned Israel's enemies: "... the security forces and IDF [Israeli military] are ready for any kind of challenge," he said.

Doctors said chances of recovery were slim.

"It's among the most dangerous of all types of strokes," with half of victims dying within a month, said Dr. Robert A. Felberg, a neurologist at Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans.

Sharon was put in an ambulance at his ranch in the Negev Desert after complaining about feeling unwell. The stroke happened during the hourlong drive to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, Dr. Shmuel Shapira of the hospital told Channel 10 TV.

The prime minister had been taking blood thinners since the first stroke to prevent another clot, but such drugs also raise the risk of cerebral hemorrhages, which account for only about 10 percent of strokes.

Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon said Sharon's authority was transferred to Olmert because the prime minister was under general anesthesia. Under Israeli law, he can hold the post for 100 days, then Israel's ceremonial president would meet with political leaders and choose someone to form a coalition government.

On Dec. 18, Sharon was taken to Hadassah Hospital from his office after suffering the mild stroke. Doctors said he would not suffer long-term effects, but they discovered a birth defect in his heart that apparently contributed to the stroke.

Sharon had been scheduled to check into the same hospital today for a procedure to repair a tiny hole between the upper chambers of his heart. Doctors said the blood clot that briefly lodged in Sharon's brain last month, causing the mild stroke, made its way through the hole and from there to a cranial artery.

Sharon first came to prominence as an army officer, setting up a unit that fought Palestinian infiltrators in the 1950s. Advancing through the ranks of the army, he served as commander of the Gaza region after Israel captured the territory in the 1967 war, launching punishing raids.

After serving in the 1973 Mideast war, Sharon left the military and entered politics, forging the hardline Likud Party, which came to power in 1977.

As defense minister, he directed Israel's ill-fated invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and was forced to step down by an Israeli commission of inquiry, which found him indirectly responsible for a massacre of Palestinians in two refugee camps by Christian Phalangist soldiers.

Sharon re-emerged as prime minister in 2001, and two years later he reversed his course of decades of support for Jewish settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank and Gaza, promoting a plan for unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank. The pullout was completed in September.

The withdrawal fractured his Likud party, and he left it to form Kadima with a platform of seeking a compromise for peace with the Palestinians. .