Surgery a success but Sharon still in a coma

ISRAELI Prime Minister Ariel Sharon underwent a successful tracheotomy yesterday to help wean him off a respirator that has been helping him breathe since he suffered a massive stroke 11 days ago, hospital officials said, but he remained in a coma.

The surgery, conducted under general anesthesia, took less than an hour as doctors cut a small hole in Mr Sharon's neck to insert a tube directly into his windpipe.

The hospital said that before the throat surgery, Mr Sharon had a brain scan, which showed his condition was "unchanged since the previous scan, carried out last Thursday."

Mr Sharon was also taken off the last of the sedatives that have kept him in a medically induced coma on Saturday evening, but he was still unconscious, according to the statement.

Outside experts said the tracheotomy was necessary because the plastic tube that had connected his windpipe with the respirator would have started to cause damage.

Mr Sharon's comatose state and the tracheotomy do not bode well for the prime minister's future, said Dr Philip Stieg, chair of neurosurgery at the Weill-Cornell Medical College in New York.

It is becoming more probable as time passes that Mr Sharon will either remain in a vegetative state or have low abilities to think and reason, said Dr Stieg, who is not involved in Mr Sharon's care.

"It suggests that the brain damage is as serious as we thought it was based on earlier reports and now it's all playing out," Dr Stieg said. "He's not turning the corner, he's not waking up... they're having to do more things to keep him alive."

Earlier in the day, the Israeli cabinet unanimously approved voting in east Jerusalem, defusing a crisis that threatened to derail Palestinian elections.

The vote was the first major political test for acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the likely political heir to Mr Sharon.

Mr Olmert, Mr Sharon's ally and a proponent of further territorial concessions to the Palestinians, has been easing the turbulence created by Mr Sharon's illness.

His ability to end the crisis over voting in disputed Jerusalem was seen as a first litmus test of his political skills.

Israel initially planned to bar Palestinian voting in east Jerusalem because candidates from the armed Hamas group were to appear on the ballot - a stand that provoked Palestinian threats to cancel the election because of Jerusalem's symbolic significance.

But last week, Israel reversed course after coming under pressure from the US, which didn't want the voting scuttled because it is eager to promote democracy in the region.

According to the proposal approved yesterday, elections in Jerusalem will go ahead as long as members of armed groups like Hamas, which call for Israel's destruction, won't be allowed to run.

"I welcome this decision," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, calling on international election observers to ensure that election campaigning and the voting wouldn't be impeded.

Hamas is expected to make a strong showing in the overall balloting and possibly dominate parliament, having been bolstered by its clean-hands image and growing violence in Palestinian-run areas.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri termed the decision as "unacceptable", but said it would not put off the elections.

"We don't need Israeli permission to participate in the elections," he said.

Shortly after the vote, police scuffled with Hamas members in Jerusalem's Old City, and detained six people, including three held on suspicion of illegal campaigning, police said.

Mohammed Abu Teir, number two on the national Hamas slate, was among those detained, relatives said.