Former Israeli Leader’s Condition Worsens

The director of the hospital says the danger to Ariel Sharon's life 'has grown'

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Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister who has been in a coma for eight years, has not recovered since his condition worsened last week, the director at his hospital said Monday.

Zeev Rotstein, director of Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel, said the danger to Sharon’s life “has grown,” CNN reports. The 85-year-old former general and politician, who has been in a coma since he had a stroke as prime minister in 2006, suffered multiple organ failure and is in critical condition.

A general who led Israel’s turnaround in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Sharon was known as “the bulldozer,” a hardline politician who was elected prime minister in 2001. He oversaw Israel’s troop withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and later left the conservative Likud party to establish the centrist Kadima party.

[CNN]