Sharon responds to pain stimulation
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-10 08:12

Israel TV's Channel 2 quoted Sharon's advisers, who are keeping watch by his side, as saying he also responded to words in some fashion, though they weren't specific.

Doctors had kept Sharon in an induced coma to help him recover from the stroke and brain surgeries, and Umansky said the doctors could put Sharon under again if his condition worsens.

The doctors' final assessment on Sharon's brain damage, whenever it comes, will be presented to Attorney General Meni Mazuz, who will decide whether to declare the prime minister permanently incapacitated.

In the event of such a ruling, the Cabinet would have to elect a prime minister within 24 hours, from among the five sitting Kadima Cabinet ministers who are also lawmakers, said Justice Ministry spokesman Yaakov Galanti.

Olmert, who is among the five, was named acting prime minister after Sharon's stroke, and can serve in the role for 100 days, which would carry him through the elections.

The uncertainty over Sharon's condition has unsettled Israelis, who have been anxiously following news updates. At the entrance to the hospital Monday, three Jerusalemites hung up a white sheet with blue lettering in English and Hebrew that read, "Ariel Sharon, there is more to do, please wake up."

In the Gaza Strip, where Sharon is reviled for his tough policies on Palestinians, 40 masked gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades militant group held a demonstration against the Israeli prime minister. One held a gun to a photo of Sharon that was labeled "the killer of children" and then burned the picture.

Before Sharon's stroke, he had been expected to handily win re-election in March, then use his third term to try to draw Israel's final borders by pulling out of large parts of the West Bank and completing a separation barrier with the Palestinians.

Former President Clinton said Sharon's stroke is a blow to peace efforts. "All of us who believe in peace in the Middle East are in his debt, and so more than anything else, I pray for his health," he said.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Monday that Sharon's death would be a serious defeat for United States policy in the Middle East, state-run radio reported.

"The Americans have been defeated in Palestine since the butcher of the Palestinians, who intended to destroy the Palestinian Intifada, has come to his end," the radio quoted Khamenei as saying to a group of visitors.

On Thursday Iran's hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he hoped for the death of Sharon.

Amid uncertainty over Sharon, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was sending two envoys to the Middle East to try to resolve an Israeli-Palestinian dispute over the participation of Arab residents of Jerusalem in the Palestinian parliament election.

Abbas has said such participation is a requisite for holding the election, and he said Monday he had received U.S. assurances Palestinians would be able to vote in the city, despite Israeli opposition.

Earlier Monday, Israel allowed campaigning in Jerusalem, a conciliatory step, but said it has not yet decided whether to permit voting.