Death finally claims Ariel Sharon after eight years in coma
After being in a coma for 8 years, Sharon finally dead. He had a stroke in 2006 and it was hoped he would recover but it didn't happen. He will be remembered as having been involved in a lot of aggression against Arabs during his long illustrious military career and later prime minister.
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Ariel Sharon's passing away marks the end of an extraordinary eight-year journey from life to death after the former Israeli prime minister suffered a massive stroke at his farm in the Negev desert.
Since 2006 Sharon had lain in a vegetative state in a private room at a long-term care centre near Tel Aviv, tended round the clock by dedicated nursing staff and watched over by two plain-clothes agents from the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency.
He never regained consciousness, although doctors and family members insisted he showed a limited response to stimuli. He was dependent on fluids and nutrients delivered through a feeding tube, although he breathed without the assistance of the artificial respirator stationed in his room.
The delicate question of how long the former prime minister should be kept alive without hope of recovery was rarely discussed openly. According to his son Gilad, medical staff urged the family to allow him to die in the aftermath of the stroke, declaring "the game was over".
The family rejected the advice. "I would never be able to forgive myself if we did not fight to the end," Gilad Sharon wrote in a biography of his father published in 2011.
The cost of Sharon's medical care was recently estimated at $456,000 (ÂĢ277,000) a year. The bill was paid entirely by the state until 2011, when a parliamentary committee decided it should be shared between the government and the Sharon family.
The stroke that in effect ended Sharon's life was blamed largely on his voracious appetite. Throughout his political career â but with increasing urgency as the prime minister grew older and bigger â Sharon's medical advisers repeatedly warned him of the dangers of obesity. They cautioned him to curb his legendary consumption of food and cigars, and to take regular exercise. The injunctions were heard and ignored.
A typical meal with friends and family would include hamburgers, steak, lamb chops, shish kebab and an array of Middle Eastern salads, followed by chocolate cake, according to the Israeli media. An adviser said he had "been told he needs to go on a diet since 1965".
He was a regular customer of a rundown restaurant in Beit Jala, a Palestinian Christian village next to Bethlehem, trapped behind the imposing concrete wall that Sharon built, where the mouthwatering smell of barbecued chicken permeates the neighbourhood. According to the owner, Nakhle Qaabar, Sharon's unmistakable form materialised twice in the restaurant itself, but mostly he would dispatch a government driver to fetch a super-sized takeaway.
The lifestyle took its toll.
On 18 December 2005, the prime minister was rushed to hospital after suffering a stroke. He was examined and treated, and discharged after two days with surgery to repair a small hole in his heart scheduled for early January.
On 4 January 2006, the night before that appointment, Sharon suffered another stroke at his beloved ranch in the Negev desert. A paramedic urged that he be taken immediately to the nearest hospital, in the city of Be'er Sheva. But Sharon's personal doctor, Shlomo Segev, who had been consulted over the phone by Sharon's son Gilad, countermanded this with an instruction to keep him at the ranch until Segev could get there from Tel Aviv.
Half an hour later, Sharon collapsed in the bathroom. An ambulance was summoned to take him to hospital in Be'er Sheva, but its departure was delayed when security personnel could not manoeuvre the stretcher carrying the prime minister into the vehicle.
As it was finally about to leave, Segev arrived and redirected the ambulance to the world-class Hadassah hospital on the edge of Jerusalem, 55 miles (90km) away. En route, the doctor rejected the offer of a helicopter transfer.
By the time Sharon arrived at the Hadassah, his condition had seriously worsened. He was operated on for seven hours, the first of several marathon surgical procedures, but never regained consciousness.
After four months at the Hadassah, the former prime minister â whose successor, Ehud Olmert, had by this time won a general election â was moved to the Sheba Medical Centre where he remained until his death. According to those close to the former prime minister his health fluctuated, although he never emerged from his coma. He breathed independently, according to Dov Weissglas, a former close aide to Sharon. "He is breathing spontaneously, not on a respirator," he told the Guardian six years ago. "If you disconnect him from the feeding machine, it means he would die slowly out of hunger and thirst â no one on earth will do it. He is very much alive, in terms of somebody who is in a coma."
Gilad, his wife, Inbal, and his brother, Omri, took turns to visit Sharon every day, insisting that they saw signs of response when they read aloud or played music in his hospital room. According to friends, the brothers were convinced their father might make a miraculous recovery.
"His children and the doctors who are treating him see different signs that he is aware, that he knows what is going on," Reuven Adler, a family friend, told the Guardian in 2007. "It's difficult to tell if he listens, if he sees. They tell me: 'We saw an improvement today,' or: 'He reacted fantastically today.' The two sons are very serious guys. They are not imagining these things."
Four years later, Gilad was still optimistic. "When he is awake, he looks at me and moves fingers when I ask him to," he told the New York Times in 2011. "He lies in bed, looking like the lord of the manor, sleeping tranquilly. Large, strong, self-assured. His cheeks are a healthy shade of red. When he's awake, he looks out with a penetrating stare. He hasn't lost a single pound; on the contrary, he's gained some."
A year ago, medical experts said Sharon had exhibited "robust activity" in his brain during tests. Scans showed the former prime minister responding to pictures of his family and recordings of his son's voice. However, doctors said the chances of him regaining consciousness were almost zero.
Sharon's kidneys began to fail last month, and a decision was taken not to put him on dialysis. Other vital organs subsequently showed signs of failure. Although his doctors spoke in recent days of his strong heart and his fighting spirit, they knew it was only a matter of time.
The former soldier and political leader is expected to be laid to rest at the ranch in the Negev desert that he loved dearly. On a hill, under a willow tree, lies the grave of his second wife, Lily, who died in 2000. The following year, an interview with the Guardian, he said, with tears in his eyes: "One day, I will be buried here too, next to my wife." Eight years after he last uttered a word, his wish is about to be realised.
Sharon began his military career at a young age, when he became involved in fighting with the Israeli Haganah, leading commando units specialising in behind-the-lines raids and forcing Palestinians to flee their homes.
In August 1953, Sharon founded and led the infamous Unit 101, which carried out a series of terror raids across the Israeli borders into refugee camps, villages and Bedouin encampments.
In September 1953, he led the Unit 101 in an attack on Bedouins in demilitarised Al Auja (a 145 square km juncture at the western Negev-Sinai frontier), killing an unknown number.
October 14, 1953, Sharon led Unit 101 into an attack on the village of Qibya in Jordan. Under his command, Israeli soldiers moved about in the village blowing up buildings, firing into doorways and windows with automatic weapons and throwing hand grenades, killing 69 civilians (mostly women and children). He later claimed he believed that the demolished houses had been empty of inhabitants, but according to the UN observer who inspected the scene, âOne story was repeated time after time: the bullet splintered door, the body sprawled across the threshold, indicating that the inhabitants had been forced by heavy fire to stay inside until their homes were blown up over them.â
In 1971 - The âPacificationâ of Gaza. Under the euphemistic title the âPacification of Gaza,â Sharon imposed a brutal policy of repression, blowing up houses, bulldozing large tracts of refugee camps, imposing severe collective punishments and imprisoning hundreds of young Palestinians. Numerous civilians were killed or unjustly imprisoned, their houses demolished and the whole area was effectively transformed into a jail.
In 1977, the Likud party won the general election under Begin. Sharon joined Beginâs first administration as Minister of Agriculture in charge of settlements; an avid supporter of the religious Gush Emunim movement he was one of main facilitators of a settlement boom aimed in part at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories.
In 1982 âPeace for the Galilee.â As Defense Minister Sharon masterminded the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which he dubbed the âPeace for the Galilee.â In all, this operation killed many thousands of civilians and rendered nearly half a million homeless.
On June 5,1982, he sent tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers across the border to fight their way up the Lebanese coast. They eventually occupied Beirut. Heavy Israeli sea, air and land bombardment devastated a substantial portion of Lebanon. By the end of July, the Lebanese government stated that at least 14,000 people had been killed - over 90% of whom were unarmed civilians - and twice that number seriously wounded.
August 12 became known as Black Thursday after a massive artillery barrage lasting some 11 hours killing some 500 Lebanese & Palestinian civilians.
On September 15, 1982, after the evacuation of PLO fighters from Beirut on the condition of international protection for the Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the region, Sharon invaded Beirut. Ariel Sharon declaring that this was in order to dislodge 2000 Palestinian fighters remaining in the city. The task of purging the camps Sharon gave to the Phalange (Lebanese force armed by and closely allied with Israel since the onset of Lebanonâs civil war in 1975).
Sabra & Shatila: The slaughter in the camps at Sabra and Shatila took place between 6:00pm on September 16 and 8:00 am on September 18, 1982 in an area under the control of the Israeli army. Sharonâs troops, having held the camps under siege, allowed Phalangists to enter. Israeli searchlights illuminated the camps, while Israeli army personnel watched through binoculars as the death squads spread unchallenged through the camps. Whole families were murdered, many were raped and tortured before being killed. So many bodies were heaped into lorries and taken away, or buried in mass graves, that the exact toll will never be known, but Palestinian sources estimate at least 2000 people were killed.
On September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon's incursion into Al Aqsa sanctuary accompanied by at least 1,000 armed soldiers and police officers triggered the outbreak of the current crisis that has so far led to the death of hundreds of Palestinians and the wounding of thousands.
(Courtesy Of: LAW - The Society for the Protection of Human Rights)
Sharon did the right thing in the end. He had the courage to withdraw Israel from Gaza in the face of potent right wing hostility. He also accepted the inevitability of the eventual creation of a viable Palestinian state.
Sharon never wanted a Palestinian state. He would always do something to provoke the Palestinians, throw a few missiles in somebody's apartment once in a while to keep the war on. He was a warmonger.
SABRA AND SHATILA MASSACRES BY SHARON WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED
Monday September 16, 2013 06:11
by IMEMC & Agencies 
Monday marks the 31st anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre that took place starting on September 16 1982, after the Israeli occupation army, led back then by Ariel Sharon, surrounded the refugee camp after invading Beirut, and granted access to the Phalanges to enter the camp to slaughter its refugees.
The massacre lasted for three days (16, 17 and 18 of September 1982), approximately 3500-8000 persons, including children, infants, women and elderly were slaughtered and murdered in his horrific and gruesome massacre perpetrated by the Israeli army and its allied criminal militia.
Back then, around 20.000 refugees lived in the refugee camp that was supposed, as any other camp, to receive international protection.
Israeli soldiers, led by Sharon and Chief of Staff, Rafael Etan, made sure their forces are surrounding the refugee camp, isolated it from its surrounding, and allowed the Phalanges to invade it and murder thousands of innocent refugees using white weapons.
The Israeli army also fired hundreds of flares during the massacres in night hours to enable the murderers to commit their war crime. The army claimed that it was searching for nearly 1500 Palestinian freedom fighters who allegedly were in the camp.
But the fighters were somewhere else, joining battle fronts countering the Israeli aggression, and most of those left in the camp, left to face their horrific end, were elderly women and children.
Israel wanted to avenge its defeat after engaging in a three-month battle and siege that ended by international guarantees, to protect the civilians the Palestinian resistance left Beirut as part of an agreement that assured the protection of civilians.
Israel wanted to send a message to the Palestinian refugees; it wanted to continue its aggression and invasion into Lebanon in 1982.
Ariel Sharon, who served as Israelâs Defense Minister, led the assault.
Following the massacre, Israelâs Supreme Court ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the circumstances that led to this ugly crime against thousands of helpless refugees.
In 1983, the Cahan Commission announced the results of what it called âinvestigationâ of the massacre, and decided that Sharon is âindirectly responsibleâ as he ignored the possibility of it taking place, ignored the danger of bloodshed and revenge.
Sharon continued his political career, to become Prime Minister and held various important positions until he suffered stroke on January 4 2006, and has been in a been in a permanent vegetative state since then.
The committee also denounced the stance of Israelâs Prime Minister back then, Menachem Begin, his Foreign Minister, Rafael Etan, and various military and security leaders, for not âdoing enough to prevent or stop the massacreâ.
The massacre was not the first, nor the last, as Israeli soldiers carried out numerous massacres against the Palestinian people in different places including Deir Yassin, Qibya, Tantour, Jenin, Jerusalem, Hebron and so many areas.
Not a single Israeli official, commander or soldier was ever held accountable for the ugly crimes, and massacres, against the Palestinian people.
The massacre in Sabra and Shatila was carried out in direct collaboration with various leaders, including Saad Haddad, who was in charge of a unit of the Lebanese army before aligning himself in 1979 with the South Lebanon Army militia, and was working with the Israeli occupation forces.
He also announced the so-called âFree Lebanonâ forces in Lebanese territories that fell under illegal Israeli occupation in the south.
Haddad dispatched members of his army from southern Lebanon to Bruit Airport, then to Sabra and Shatila, where they had a prominent role in the massacre. He died of a terminal illness on January 14 1984.
Fadi Ferm, who was married to one of the granddaughters of the Phalange Party founder, Pierre Gemayel, was appointed by Bashir Gemayel as the leader of the Lebanese Force militia in 1982 after Bashir Gemayel was elected present, just one day before his assassination.
Ferm moved through the ranks of the Lebanese Force, later on became the head of the Military Intelligence of the LF Militia, and then became the deputy chief before he became the commander.
Bashir Gemayel, the militia commander, and president-elect in Lebanon, was a senior member of the Phalange party, and was the commander of the Lebanese Forces militia during the first several years of the Civil War in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990.
During the Sabra and Shatila massacres, Gemayel was the leader giving the Lebanese Force militia orders to invade the refugee camps.
He was elected president during the civil war, and while southern Lebanon was under Israeli military occupation. He was assassinated on September 14 1982, along with 26 persons, by an explosion that took place in the Phalange headquarters in Beirut.
Months before Sharon and his army invading Lebanon, Bashir had a meeting with Sharon who told him that his army would be invading Lebanon to remove the Palestinian Liberation Organization and its fighters from the country.
The Electronic Intifada;
âThey shot my father in the headâ: interview with survivor of Sabra and Shatila massacre
19 September 2012
He should have never been born. Wasted sperm!
ARIEL SHARON AT 85, FINALLY DIES
SABRA AND SHATILA MASSACRES BY SHARON WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED: The massacre lasted for three days (16, 17 and 18 of September 1982), approximately 3500-8000 persons,
Ariel Sharon in a vegitative state for eight years
THE EVIL THAT MEN DO LIVES AFTER THEM: VEGITATIVE STATE FOR EIGHT YEARS
Party at Chief house tonight. 
ARIEL SHARON AT 85, FINALLY DIES
SABRA AND SHATILA MASSACRES BY SHARON WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED: The massacre lasted for three days (16, 17 and 18 of September 1982), approximately 3500-8000 persons,
Ariel Sharon in a vegitative state for eight years
THE EVIL THAT MEN DO LIVES AFTER THEM: VEGITATIVE STATE FOR EIGHT YEARS
This Sharon killed many innocent people.
nothing sad about his death, he paid a price for 8 years and many more to come after death,he killed many innocent lives.
Ariel Sharon's passing away marks the end of an extraordinary eight-year journey from life to death after the former Israeli prime minister suffered a massive stroke at his farm in the Negev desert.
Since 2006 Sharon had lain in a vegetative state in a private room at a long-term care centre near Tel Aviv, tended round the clock by dedicated nursing staff and watched over by two plain-clothes agents from the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency.
He never regained consciousness, although doctors and family members insisted he showed a limited response to stimuli. He was dependent on fluids and nutrients delivered through a feeding tube, although he breathed without the assistance of the artificial respirator stationed in his room.
The delicate question of how long the former prime minister should be kept alive without hope of recovery was rarely discussed openly. According to his son Gilad, medical staff urged the family to allow him to die in the aftermath of the stroke, declaring "the game was over".
The family rejected the advice. "I would never be able to forgive myself if we did not fight to the end," Gilad Sharon wrote in a biography of his father published in 2011.
The cost of Sharon's medical care was recently estimated at $456,000 (ÂĢ277,000) a year. The bill was paid entirely by the state until 2011, when a parliamentary committee decided it should be shared between the government and the Sharon family.
The stroke that in effect ended Sharon's life was blamed largely on his voracious appetite. Throughout his political career â but with increasing urgency as the prime minister grew older and bigger â Sharon's medical advisers repeatedly warned him of the dangers of obesity. They cautioned him to curb his legendary consumption of food and cigars, and to take regular exercise. The injunctions were heard and ignored.
A typical meal with friends and family would include hamburgers, steak, lamb chops, shish kebab and an array of Middle Eastern salads, followed by chocolate cake, according to the Israeli media. An adviser said he had "been told he needs to go on a diet since 1965".
He was a regular customer of a rundown restaurant in Beit Jala, a Palestinian Christian village next to Bethlehem, trapped behind the imposing concrete wall that Sharon built, where the mouthwatering smell of barbecued chicken permeates the neighbourhood. According to the owner, Nakhle Qaabar, Sharon's unmistakable form materialised twice in the restaurant itself, but mostly he would dispatch a government driver to fetch a super-sized takeaway.
The lifestyle took its toll.
On 18 December 2005, the prime minister was rushed to hospital after suffering a stroke. He was examined and treated, and discharged after two days with surgery to repair a small hole in his heart scheduled for early January.
On 4 January 2006, the night before that appointment, Sharon suffered another stroke at his beloved ranch in the Negev desert. A paramedic urged that he be taken immediately to the nearest hospital, in the city of Be'er Sheva. But Sharon's personal doctor, Shlomo Segev, who had been consulted over the phone by Sharon's son Gilad, countermanded this with an instruction to keep him at the ranch until Segev could get there from Tel Aviv.
Half an hour later, Sharon collapsed in the bathroom. An ambulance was summoned to take him to hospital in Be'er Sheva, but its departure was delayed when security personnel could not manoeuvre the stretcher carrying the prime minister into the vehicle.
As it was finally about to leave, Segev arrived and redirected the ambulance to the world-class Hadassah hospital on the edge of Jerusalem, 55 miles (90km) away. En route, the doctor rejected the offer of a helicopter transfer.
By the time Sharon arrived at the Hadassah, his condition had seriously worsened. He was operated on for seven hours, the first of several marathon surgical procedures, but never regained consciousness.
After four months at the Hadassah, the former prime minister â whose successor, Ehud Olmert, had by this time won a general election â was moved to the Sheba Medical Centre where he remained until his death. According to those close to the former prime minister his health fluctuated, although he never emerged from his coma. He breathed independently, according to Dov Weissglas, a former close aide to Sharon. "He is breathing spontaneously, not on a respirator," he told the Guardian six years ago. "If you disconnect him from the feeding machine, it means he would die slowly out of hunger and thirst â no one on earth will do it. He is very much alive, in terms of somebody who is in a coma."
Gilad, his wife, Inbal, and his brother, Omri, took turns to visit Sharon every day, insisting that they saw signs of response when they read aloud or played music in his hospital room. According to friends, the brothers were convinced their father might make a miraculous recovery.
"His children and the doctors who are treating him see different signs that he is aware, that he knows what is going on," Reuven Adler, a family friend, told the Guardian in 2007. "It's difficult to tell if he listens, if he sees. They tell me: 'We saw an improvement today,' or: 'He reacted fantastically today.' The two sons are very serious guys. They are not imagining these things."
Four years later, Gilad was still optimistic. "When he is awake, he looks at me and moves fingers when I ask him to," he told the New York Times in 2011. "He lies in bed, looking like the lord of the manor, sleeping tranquilly. Large, strong, self-assured. His cheeks are a healthy shade of red. When he's awake, he looks out with a penetrating stare. He hasn't lost a single pound; on the contrary, he's gained some."
A year ago, medical experts said Sharon had exhibited "robust activity" in his brain during tests. Scans showed the former prime minister responding to pictures of his family and recordings of his son's voice. However, doctors said the chances of him regaining consciousness were almost zero.
Sharon's kidneys began to fail last month, and a decision was taken not to put him on dialysis. Other vital organs subsequently showed signs of failure. Although his doctors spoke in recent days of his strong heart and his fighting spirit, they knew it was only a matter of time.
The former soldier and political leader is expected to be laid to rest at the ranch in the Negev desert that he loved dearly. On a hill, under a willow tree, lies the grave of his second wife, Lily, who died in 2000. The following year, an interview with the Guardian, he said, with tears in his eyes: "One day, I will be buried here too, next to my wife." Eight years after he last uttered a word, his wish is about to be realised.
This man had a massive daily appetite for Palestinian food.
Ariel Sharon's passing away marks the end of an extraordinary eight-year journey from life to death after the former Israeli prime minister suffered a massive stroke at his farm in the Negev desert.
Since 2006 Sharon had lain in a vegetative state in a private room at a long-term care centre near Tel Aviv, tended round the clock by dedicated nursing staff and watched over by two plain-clothes agents from the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency.
He never regained consciousness, although doctors and family members insisted he showed a limited response to stimuli. He was dependent on fluids and nutrients delivered through a feeding tube, although he breathed without the assistance of the artificial respirator stationed in his room.
The delicate question of how long the former prime minister should be kept alive without hope of recovery was rarely discussed openly. According to his son Gilad, medical staff urged the family to allow him to die in the aftermath of the stroke, declaring "the game was over".
The family rejected the advice. "I would never be able to forgive myself if we did not fight to the end," Gilad Sharon wrote in a biography of his father published in 2011.
The cost of Sharon's medical care was recently estimated at $456,000 (ÂĢ277,000) a year. The bill was paid entirely by the state until 2011, when a parliamentary committee decided it should be shared between the government and the Sharon family.
The stroke that in effect ended Sharon's life was blamed largely on his voracious appetite. Throughout his political career â but with increasing urgency as the prime minister grew older and bigger â Sharon's medical advisers repeatedly warned him of the dangers of obesity. They cautioned him to curb his legendary consumption of food and cigars, and to take regular exercise. The injunctions were heard and ignored.
A typical meal with friends and family would include hamburgers, steak, lamb chops, shish kebab and an array of Middle Eastern salads, followed by chocolate cake, according to the Israeli media. An adviser said he had "been told he needs to go on a diet since 1965".
He was a regular customer of a rundown restaurant in Beit Jala, a Palestinian Christian village next to Bethlehem, trapped behind the imposing concrete wall that Sharon built, where the mouthwatering smell of barbecued chicken permeates the neighbourhood. According to the owner, Nakhle Qaabar, Sharon's unmistakable form materialised twice in the restaurant itself, but mostly he would dispatch a government driver to fetch a super-sized takeaway.
The lifestyle took its toll.
On 18 December 2005, the prime minister was rushed to hospital after suffering a stroke. He was examined and treated, and discharged after two days with surgery to repair a small hole in his heart scheduled for early January.
On 4 January 2006, the night before that appointment, Sharon suffered another stroke at his beloved ranch in the Negev desert. A paramedic urged that he be taken immediately to the nearest hospital, in the city of Be'er Sheva. But Sharon's personal doctor, Shlomo Segev, who had been consulted over the phone by Sharon's son Gilad, countermanded this with an instruction to keep him at the ranch until Segev could get there from Tel Aviv.
Half an hour later, Sharon collapsed in the bathroom. An ambulance was summoned to take him to hospital in Be'er Sheva, but its departure was delayed when security personnel could not manoeuvre the stretcher carrying the prime minister into the vehicle.
As it was finally about to leave, Segev arrived and redirected the ambulance to the world-class Hadassah hospital on the edge of Jerusalem, 55 miles (90km) away. En route, the doctor rejected the offer of a helicopter transfer.
By the time Sharon arrived at the Hadassah, his condition had seriously worsened. He was operated on for seven hours, the first of several marathon surgical procedures, but never regained consciousness.
After four months at the Hadassah, the former prime minister â whose successor, Ehud Olmert, had by this time won a general election â was moved to the Sheba Medical Centre where he remained until his death. According to those close to the former prime minister his health fluctuated, although he never emerged from his coma. He breathed independently, according to Dov Weissglas, a former close aide to Sharon. "He is breathing spontaneously, not on a respirator," he told the Guardian six years ago. "If you disconnect him from the feeding machine, it means he would die slowly out of hunger and thirst â no one on earth will do it. He is very much alive, in terms of somebody who is in a coma."
Gilad, his wife, Inbal, and his brother, Omri, took turns to visit Sharon every day, insisting that they saw signs of response when they read aloud or played music in his hospital room. According to friends, the brothers were convinced their father might make a miraculous recovery.
"His children and the doctors who are treating him see different signs that he is aware, that he knows what is going on," Reuven Adler, a family friend, told the Guardian in 2007. "It's difficult to tell if he listens, if he sees. They tell me: 'We saw an improvement today,' or: 'He reacted fantastically today.' The two sons are very serious guys. They are not imagining these things."
Four years later, Gilad was still optimistic. "When he is awake, he looks at me and moves fingers when I ask him to," he told the New York Times in 2011. "He lies in bed, looking like the lord of the manor, sleeping tranquilly. Large, strong, self-assured. His cheeks are a healthy shade of red. When he's awake, he looks out with a penetrating stare. He hasn't lost a single pound; on the contrary, he's gained some."
A year ago, medical experts said Sharon had exhibited "robust activity" in his brain during tests. Scans showed the former prime minister responding to pictures of his family and recordings of his son's voice. However, doctors said the chances of him regaining consciousness were almost zero.
Sharon's kidneys began to fail last month, and a decision was taken not to put him on dialysis. Other vital organs subsequently showed signs of failure. Although his doctors spoke in recent days of his strong heart and his fighting spirit, they knew it was only a matter of time.
The former soldier and political leader is expected to be laid to rest at the ranch in the Negev desert that he loved dearly. On a hill, under a willow tree, lies the grave of his second wife, Lily, who died in 2000. The following year, an interview with the Guardian, he said, with tears in his eyes: "One day, I will be buried here too, next to my wife." Eight years after he last uttered a word, his wish is about to be realised.
This man had a massive daily appetite for Palestinian food BLOOD.
Among'st People in the Arab World, his legacy will be a tarnished one. The Palestinians rejoiced at his death.
Sharon did the right thing in the end. He had the courage to withdraw Israel from Gaza in the face of potent right wing hostility. He also accepted the inevitability of the eventual creation of a viable Palestinian state.
The world feels lighter now that one of its horrible people can be given to the worms
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