After feeling ‘tired,’ Abbas undergoes heart test in hospital
West Bank medical official says cardiac catheterization performed on 81-year-old Palestinian leader, who was found to be fit
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A West Bank hospital official said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas underwent a heart test after being hospitalized.
The official said Abbas, 81, had a cardiac catheterization, a procedure in which a thin tube is inserted into a blood vessel to examine the strength of his heart.
He was taken to a hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah after feeling “tired” Thursday, according to a Palestinian official.
Abbas was found to be fit and healthy and was due to leave the hospital, this official said. There was no immediate official confirmation of this.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the president’s condition with the media.
In January rumors circulated on social media that Abbas had suffered a stroke and was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in Jordan. Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh called the rumors “baseless” and said at the time that Abbas was in “very good health.” Abbas’s office in Ramallah would not comment on his location but said that he was “in good health,” and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) also declined to comment on his whereabouts at the time.
Rumors of a similar nature were spread when Abbas visited Cairo in November 2015. Abbas subsequently told The Times of Israel that he met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and that the meetings “went well” and were “positive.”
Abbas’s presidential term formally ended in 2009, but has continued for lack of elections because of intra-Palestinian divisions between his Fatah party and the Islamist Hamas group ruling Gaza. His successor as head of the PLO and Fatah is also a matter of much speculation.
The Times of Israel Community.