Netanyahu: Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu undergoes pacemaker implantation surgery ahead of Parliament vote on controversial judicial reforms

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday underwent a successful pacemaker implantation, an operation scheduled to take place just days before the Knesset votes on a controversial judicial reform bill.

Netanyahu, 73, got a pacemaker a week after he was hospitalized for dehydration and had a heart monitor implanted.
The operation took place early Sunday morning at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan.

The Prime Minister’s Office said the operation was completed successfully and he is feeling well and is expected to be discharged from hospital on Sunday.
previously, Netanyahu He announced on Twitter that he would be fitted with the device that sends electrical impulses to the heart.
The Prime Minister’s Office said he was sedated during the surgery, the Minister of Justice and the Deputy Prime Minister Yariv Levin He served as acting prime minister while Netanyahu was being operated on.
The announcement also came as the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, was set to begin debating the bill on Sunday morning, ahead of its second, third – and final – readings expected on Monday or Tuesday.
The legislation, part of a broader plan to overhaul the justice system, has sparked fierce opposition, with hundreds of thousands protesting and many setting up a tent city near the Knesset, while some 10,000 reservists said they would stop volunteer work if it was passed into law.
The weekly cabinet meeting scheduled for Sunday morning has been postponed to an as yet unknown time. Major security discussions – including a planned meeting between the prime minister and the IDF chief of staff – were also postponed Herzi Halevy – The impact of the “reasonableness” bill and the reservists’ threats on Israel’s security, the report added.
Thousands of demonstrators arrived in Jerusalem on Saturday, the culmination of a five-day march from Tel Aviv to protest Netanyahu’s plans to weaken the powers of the Israeli courts.
On Sunday, the Knesset kicks off a bill that would remove the supreme court The power to declare government decisions “unreasonable”, removing one of the few checks on government in a country that does not have a written constitution.
Further escalation of pressure on Defense Minister Netanyahu Yoav GallantA member of Netanyahu’s Likud party is trying to delay the vote after more than 1,000 Air Force reserve officers threatened to stop volunteering if the bill passed.
Netanyahu heads an unprecedentedly hardline Israeli coalition government, which has stoked more than six months of domestic opposition over its plans to reform the judiciary.
The legislation that blocks judicial scrutiny over the “reasonableness” of politicians’ decisions is the first sweeping reform bill introduced since Netanyahu temporarily froze the legislative campaign in late March. The Knesset rests for a summer recess at the end of the month.
Netanyahu, who is also in the midst of a drawn-out corruption trial, is charged with three counts of fraud and breach of trust and one count of bribery. He denies all allegations and says he is a victim of political stalking.
A pacemaker is a device that stimulates the heart to control or increase the heartbeat if it is too slow or irregular. The transplant usually takes several hours and recipients are usually discharged from the hospital the same day or the next, according to the Mayo Clinic and Britain’s National Health Service.