This report has yet to be broken by other MSM outlets:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the most powerful Israeli leader in 50 years, has died. He was 77.
Sharon was declared dead by physicians at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital before 1 p.m. Israeli time [6 a.m. EST], Middle East Newsline reported. Authorities have already been notified of the death, and a government announcement was expected to be issued over the next hour.
MSNBC is running a different story:
Updated: 10:22 a.m. ET Jan. 6, 2006JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had emergency brain surgery for five hours Friday after doctors detected further bleeding and increasing pressure, a hospital official said without giving details on the premier's condition.
Sharon, 77, then was taken from the operating room for a brain scan, Hadassah Hospital spokeswoman Yael Bossem-Levy said.
In the mean-time, some are threatening a rocket barrage on Jewish towns once Sharon dies:
Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip are watching the news
regarding Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's deteriorating health
carefully and will celebrate with Qassam rocket firings at Jewish towns if
Sharon dies, terror leaders told WorldNetDaily.One militant leader threatened the life of Sharon's temporary replacement,
Deputy Minister Ehud Olmert, who was installed as prime minister just hours
ago."I am ready with my candies and my rockets and praying to Allah that Sharon
dies. We have prepared a celebratory barrage of rockets ready to fire into
Israel on the occasion of the death of our enemy," said Abu Abir, spokesman
for the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella group of Hamas and
Islamic Jihad terrorists responsible for firing hundreds of Qassam rockets
and mortars at Jewish towns.
Iran's extremist President yesterday was wishing Sharon dead:
Iran’s ultra-conservative president said tonight he hoped Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would die.
It was the latest anti-Israeli comment by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has already provoked international criticism for suggesting that Israel be “wiped off the map”.
“Hopefully, the news that the criminal of Sabra and Chatilla has joined his ancestors is final,” he was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency.
And Pat Robertson once again has done his best to give fodder to those who think conservative Christians are wacky:
The television evangelist Pat Robertson and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may not agree on much, but both suggested Thursday that the severe illness of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was deserved. Both men's comments were immediately condemned by religious leaders.
Speaking on his Christian Broadcasting Network's ''700 Club,'' which says it has 1 million viewers, Robertson said God was punishing Sharon for dividing the land of Israel. Sharon, who engineered Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip last year, suffered a massive stroke Wednesday.
''Sharon was personally a very likable person, and I am sad to see him in this condition, but I think we need to look at the Bible and the Book of Joel. The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who 'divide my land,''' Robertson said.
Sharon ''was dividing God's land, and I would say: Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America,'' the 75-year-old Baptist minister said.
Pray for the repose of Ariel Sharon and for the peace of Jerusalem.
UPDATE: World Tribune is now doing some back-pedaling:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 77, the most powerful Israeli leader in 50 years, has died, Middle East Newsline reported.
However wire reports said Sharon showed "significant improvement" after five hours of emergency brain surgery Friday.
The confusion was exacerbated by the timing of the reports which came at the onset of the Jewish Sabbath, at sundown on Friday, when traditionally arrangements for the dead and burials are delayed until Saturday night.
However wire reports said Sharon underwent emergency surgery to stem fresh bleeding in his brain. Reuters reported: "During the surgery the cranial pressure was released and some of the blood clots that remained from the previous surgery were drained," Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, director of Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital, told reporters.
"At the end of the operation there is no active bleeding," Mor-Yosef said after the nearly five-hour procedure.
No such back-pedaling yet from Pat Robertson despite criticism coming from the White House:
The White House is rebuking religious broadcaster Pat Robertson for suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment.Speaking on his "700 Club" T-V show, Roberson noted the Israeli leader's stroke and suggested God was punishing him for "dividing God's land."
That was a reference to last year's Gaza withdrawal, which Sharon engineered.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy calls the remark "wholly inappropriate and offensive." And speaking to reporters as President Bush flew to Chicago, he said it has no place "in this or any other debate."
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