The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahuwas discharged from hospital this Thursday four days after undergoing surgery to remove his prostate, his office confirmed.
“I just left the hospital. Hadassah Ein Kerem and I would like to thank many, many of you, citizens of Israel, for the prayers, encouragement and support that touched me and my family deeply,” he wrote on his X account.
The Israeli politician also thanked the hospital director and all the medical staff who were in charge of his surgery for the treatment he received during his hospital stay.
Netanyahu underwent prostate removal surgery after suffering an infection on Sunday night, for which he received general anesthesia.
Without having received a medical discharge, this Tuesday he left the Hadasah hospital in Jerusalem for a few hours to go to the Kneeling (Israeli Parliament) and participate in a decisive vote on the budget law.
Netanyahu went to the Knesset against the recommendation of his doctors to guarantee the approval of legislation aimed at increasing State income, after the Minister of Public Security, the far-right Itamar Ben Gvirand ultra-Orthodox parties said they could vote against or abstain.
The bill, a wartime austerity package of tax hikes and spending cuts, passed narrowly, but the opposition was another sign of the widening cracks in Netanyahu’s coalition.
The prime minister, 75, went for a medical check-up last week and was diagnosed with a “urinary tract infection resulting from abenign enlargement of the prostate”, so it was decided to remove it after a course of antibiotics to cure the infection.
Netanyahu already underwent surgery on March 31 to remove a hernia, for which he required general anesthesia and from which he recovered in a couple of days.
The Israeli prime minister also required an operation in July 2023 to have a pacemaker implanted, after detecting a heart problem in a medical check-up when he was admitted for fainting.
As then, Netanyahu faces a complicated political situation, now aggravated by the war between Israel and Hamas that has been going on for more than 14 months without reaching an agreement.
The prime minister had asked the Jerusalem District Court to postpone hearings in his corruption trial scheduled for this week, due to his operation.
Netanyahu’s lawyer Amit Hadadconfirmed that the court quickly granted the request and set in principle the resumption of the interrogations “next week, on Monday, January 6”, before wishing the prime minister a full recovery.
Netanyahu has been accused since 2019 of fraud, bribery and breach of trust in three separate corruption cases that have been tried together since 2020, in a long process in which the prime minister began testifying this month after several delays due to the war.
The prime minister offered his first testimony on December 10 and has testified six times until now before the Tel Aviv district court, where the hearings were moved because it has a bunker.
(With information from EFE)
