The heat wave in Israel has reached the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu After feeling unwell at home in the northern town of Cesárea, he was transferred to the emergency department of Sheba Hospital (Tel Hashomer) to undergo exhaustive medical tests. Minutes after the entry of the conservative leader, from 73 yearsin the medical center located near Tel Aviv and to dispel the growing rumors, his spokesmen reported that he was “well and fully conscious.”
But the doubts were completely put to rest two hours later with the reassuring words of Netanyahu himself in a video recorded in the hospital. “Yesterday I was with my wife in the Kineret (Sea of Galilee) under the sun and without hat or water. It was not a good idea“he said on camera.
“Thank God, I feel very well but I only have one request for all of you: we are going through a heat wave in the country so I ask you to be less in the sun and drink more water and that we all have a good week”, he added, definitively removing the fears in Israel from a scenario similar to that of January 4, 2006 when the then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was urgently evacuated to Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital in Jerusalem due to a fatal stroke.
The doctors decided that Netanyahu remains tonight under observation in the Sheba Hospital. He is expected to leave this Sunday. For now, the weekly government meeting scheduled for this Sunday morning has been postponed.
According to various sources, at noon on this Saturday and during the rest day of the Shabbat suffered chest pains and slight dizziness at his private residence in northern Israel. The paramedic from the protection service (unit 730) of the internal security agency that always accompanies the prime minister made the decision to take him to the largest hospital in Israel as a precaution to carry out the relevant tests. There he was accompanied by his wife Sara and one of his sons, Avner. The hospital decided to keep him hospitalized overnight to be able to leave this Sunday. Like the rest of the fractured and confronted Israeli political class, the head of the opposition, Yair Lapid, wished him a “complete recovery and health. May you feel good”.
There are few positions in the world that carry as much pressure and anxiety as the Prime Minister of Israel. Today, it is even higher. Beyond the heat wave, Netanyahu faces a monumental political stormsocial and economic in a country more divided than ever.