Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Sunday that he would go to hospital for an emergency procedure to receive a pacemaker, but vowed to go ahead with his controversial judicial review plan.
In a brief videotaped statement posted at 2 a.m., Netanyahu said he had been fitted with a monitoring device after being briefly hospitalized last week for what his office had said was dehydration. He said an alarm on the device went off Saturday night, meaning he needed a pacemaker right away.
“I feel great, but I listen to my doctors,” he said.
In a brief statement, Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli leader would be sedated. A senior deputy, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, would replace him.
Netanyahu’s office made the announcement as Israel faces widespread street protests over Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reform plan. The plan has sparked months of protests, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets on Saturday night to demonstrate against it ahead of a key parliamentary vote on Monday.
Levin is the mastermind behind the overhaul plan.
Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister would receive the pacemaker at Israel’s Sheba Hospital, where he was also treated last week.
Netanyahu said he expected to be released from hospital on Sunday and head to the Knesset, or parliament, before an expected vote on his reform.
At the same time, he said that he hoped to reach an agreement with his opponents.
A pacemaker is used when a patient’s heart beats too slowly, which can cause fainting, according to the National Institutes of Health. It can also be used to treat heart failure. By sending electrical pulses to the heart, the device increases or maintains the normal rate of a person’s heartbeat, allowing the heart to pump blood to the body at a normal rate.