JERUSALEM – While dozens of masked Palestinian gunmen burned his picture in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave the first signs yesterday that he may survive his massive stroke.
Sharon resumed breathing on his own and moved his right hand and leg in response to stimulation, doctors said.
The 77-year-old prime minister’s movements “became more and more significant” as doctors reduced his sedation, said Shlomo Mor-Yosef, director of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.
Doctors said Sharon would remain hooked up to a ventilator and that his withdrawal from an induced coma will take days.
“We cannot say he is out of danger,” chief surgeon Felix Umansky said.
Nevertheless, the at- mosphere at the hospital after yesterday’s tests was in sharp contrast with the mood in Jerusalem last week.
The Post learned that on Thursday, a day after Sharon suffered his stroke, at least three members of his Cabinet said privately his hours were numbered.
Aides in the prime minister’s office were told then to prepare for the possibility of a funeral.
But yesterday, Sharon’s survival was triggering much different reactions.
In the Gaza Strip, 40 masked gunmen from the terrorist Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades demonstrated against Sharon and burned a photo of him that was labeled “the killer of children.”
Meanwhile, at the hospital entrance, three Israelis hung a white sheet with blue lettering in English and Hebrew that read, “Ariel Sharon, there is more to do, please wake up.”
Doctors kept Sharon in a coma until yesterday’s tests, which were regarded as a moment of truth for Sharon’s possible recovery.
They said Sharon’s blood pressure went up when they stimulated him with pain – and that is a good sign.
Mor-Yosef said Sharon’s ability to “breath spontaneously” was “the first sign of some sort of activity in his brain.”
The doctors mentioned only the movement in Sharon’s right side, prompting speculation that his left side remains paralyzed. The left side of the body is controlled by the right side of the brain – where Sharon’s stroke occurred.
Despite the uncertainty over Sharon’s future, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is sending two senior envoys to the Mideast today to aid peacemaking efforts.
Assistant Secretary of State David Welch and Elliott Abrams, of President Bush’s national security council staff, were to have met Sharon’s top aides last week but their trip was postponed.
* A small military passenger jet crashed yesterday in northwestern Iran, killing at least 13 people, including the commander of the ground forces of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, state media said.
With Post Wire Services