Jerusalem: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday underwent a successful pacemaker implantation procedure, a surgery scheduled just days before the Knesset is set to vote on a controversial judicial reform bill that has paralysed the whole country.
Last week, Netanyahu, 73, was hospitalised from Saturday to Sunday after he complained of dizziness following a trip Friday to the Sea of Galilee, where he acknowledged spending several hours in the sun and in scorching heat “without a hat, without water.”
Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan then said that the doctors had completed a series of examinations and found that the Prime Minister’s heart “is completely normal,” and that “at no point was any heart arrhythmia found”.
However, doctors “decided to use a subcutaneous Holter”, a device that monitors one’s heart and warns if there are irregularities.
The pacemaker implantation procedure took place early Sunday morning at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan.
The Prime Minister’s Office said the operation was completed successfully, that he was feeling good and that he was expected to be discharged Sunday.
In a video message shortly before 1 am Netanyahu said that “a week ago they put a monitoring device. That device beeped this evening and said I need to receive a pacemaker.”
“I need to do this already tonight. I’m feeling excellent, but I’m listening to my doctors,” he stressed.
In an earlier statement, the Prime Minister’s Office while informing about the procedure also quoted Nethanyahu as saying that “the efforts to reach a wide agreement are continuing” on a divisive first bill of the government’s highly contentious judicial overhaul that has paralysed the country.
Implanting a pacemaker usually takes several hours and patients are typically discharged from the hospital in a day or two.
The Prime Minister’s office said that he was sedated during the procedure and the Minister of Justice and Deputy Prime Minister Yariv Levin served as acting prime minister while Nethanyahu’s surgery.
The announcement also came when the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, was set to begin debating the bill on Sunday morning, ahead of its second and third — and final — readings, expected Monday or Tuesday.
The legislation, part of the wider plan to overhaul the judiciary, has drawn intense opposition, with hundreds of thousands protesting and many setting up a tent city near the Knesset, while some 10,000 reservists have said they will halt their volunteer duty if it passes into law.
The weekly cabinet meeting scheduled for Sunday morning was delayed to a yet-unknown time. Also postponed were key security discussions — including a reported planned meeting between the premier and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi — on the impact of the “reasonableness” bill and the reservists’ threats on Israel’s security.
Meanwhile, thousands of marchers reached Jerusalem Saturday, the culmination of a five-day walk from Tel Aviv to protest against Netanyahu’s plans to weaken the powers of Israel’s courts.
The Knesset on Sunday will begin on a bill that would strip the Supreme Court of the power to declare government decisions “unreasonable,” removing one of the few checks on the government in a country that has no written Constitution.
Further ratcheting up the pressure on Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, is trying to delay the vote after more than 1,000 Air Force reserve officers threatened to stop volunteering if the bill passed.
Netanyahu, in his sixth term, heads an unprecedentedly hardline Israeli coalition government, which has sparked more than six months of internal opposition over its plans to overhaul the judiciary.
The legislation to block judicial scrutiny over the “reasonableness” of politicians’ decisions is the first overhaul bill to advance since Netanyahu temporarily froze the legislative blitz in late March. The Knesset breaks for summer recess at the end of the month.
Protesters have fought relentlessly for the past six months against the judicial overhaul plans being advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, so far successfully blocking the ruling coalition from giving itself the power to override Supreme Court decisions, strike down laws and appoint justices.
Netanyahu, who is also in the midst of a protracted corruption trial, has been charged with three counts of fraud and breach of trust and one of bribery. He denies all the allegations and says he is the victim of a political witch hunt.
