Israeli PM Netanyahu rushed to hospital with probable dehydration, office says
- Benjamin Netanyahu, 73, who is Israel’s longest-serving leader, had been on holiday at the Sea of Galilee on Friday during a heatwave, his office said
- ‘The preliminary diagnosis is dehydration,’ Netanyahu’s office said, adding further routine tests were under way
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was admitted to hospital on Saturday with dizziness from apparent dehydration but was in good condition, his office said, and there were no indications of a potential handover of power.
On Saturday, he was taken to Sheba Hospital in the town of Tel Hashomer, close to his private residence in coastal Caesarea. Israeli media said he was fully conscious en route to Sheba and that he walked into the accident and emergency department.
Channel 12 TV said he had suffered chest pain but there was no confirmation of that. He was not undergoing sedation and no procedures were under way to declare him incapacitated, it added.
Netanyahu’s office said he was admitted on his doctor’s recommendation after complaining of “light dizziness”.
“Initial tests came back normal, without findings. The preliminary diagnosis is dehydration,” it said, adding further routine tests were under way. An earlier statement said his condition was fine.
It was not immediately clear who might replace Netanyahu in the event of an emergency succession.
When former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was felled by a stroke in 2006, he was succeeded by his deputy, Ehud Olmert. Justice Minister Yariv Levin has previously stood in for Netanyahu during foreign trips.
First elected to top office in 1996 at the head of the conservative Likud party, Netanyahu has been both dynamic and polarising. He spearheaded a free-market revolution in Israel while showing distrust of internationally-backed peacemaking with the Palestinians and negotiations to cap Iran’s nuclear programme.
He is in the grip of a domestic furore over his plan to overhaul the judiciary, which has set off unprecedented protests by Israelis worried for the future independence of the courts.
Netanyahu is himself no stranger to the docks, after being indicted in three corruption cases. He denies wrongdoing and has cast the trial as a politicised witch-hunt.
With hundreds of military reservists threatening not to heed call-up orders in protest at the government reforms, Israel’s Channel 13 on Wednesday broadcast audio of Netanyahu shouting in a cabinet session that such insubordination was “inconceivable”.
“I wish the prime minister a full recovery and good health,” tweeted Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of the opposition.
In early October, Netanyahu took ill during the Jewish fast of Yom Kippur and was also briefly hospitalised.
