PM Benjamin Netanyahu to be fitted with pacemaker: Israel PM office

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Benjamin Netanyahu will be fitted with a pacemaker overnight between Saturday and Sunday, he said in a video statement released by his office. «A week ago I was fitted with a monitoring device. That device beeped this evening and said I must receive a pacemaker and that I must do this already tonight,» Netanyahu said in the video.

«I feel great, but I need to listen to my doctors.» Netanyahu, 73, was standing in the video and smiling. He said his doctors assured him he would be discharged from the hospital «tomorrow afternoon.» Justice Minister Yariv Levin will replace him during the procedure, Netanyahu's office said. Netanyahu will undergo the procedure at Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer, his office said.

He had been hospitalised there overnight on July 15 for what he said was dehydration from holidaying at the Sea of Galilee without properly protecting himself from a heatwave. The hospital on July 16 confirmed its original diagnosis of dehydration and said additional tests involving a subcutaneous holter monitor had found Netanyahu to be «in complete cardiac health,» though the device would allow his medical team to continue monitoring his health. Netanyahu faces a domestic crisis in his record sixth term as prime minister, with protests surging against his religious-nationalist coalition's push for judicial changes.

Netanyahu said in the video he would be discharged from hospital in time for a key vote scheduled to start at parliament on Sunday and last throughout Monday. Tens of thousands of Israelis marched to Jerusalem on Saturday hoping to drum up support against the judicial overhaul and rallied outside parliament ahead of the vote on the bill that would limit some of the Supreme Court's powers. Critics