Joint List chief Ayman Odeh hospitalized after reporting chest pain

Ayman Odeh, the leader of the predominantly Arab Joint List party, was hospitalized in Jerusalem Wednesday afternoon with chest pains.

Odeh was taken from the Knesset to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center via ambulance, after he reported pain in his chest. Reports said Odeh went first to the Knesset health clinic and was then sent to the hospital by doctors there following an examination.

According to Odeh’s spokesman, the MK was undergoing tests in the hospital’s cardiology department. A spokeswoman for the hospital said Odeh’s tests appeared clear but that he would remain under observation.

Odeh had been in the Knesset since Wednesday morning for the stormy vote on the contentious Electricity Law, which passed its second and third readings. The legislation, proposed by the coalition’s Islamist Ra’am party, addresses the issue of more than 130,000 Arab Israelis who live in illegally built homes across the country that cannot be connected to the national grid under existing legislation.

On Tuesday night, Odeh clashed yet again with far-right Religious Zionism MK Itamar Ben Gvir at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, outside the room of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner Hisham Abu Hawash. Both MKs arrived at the hospital after news broke that Abu Hawash had agreed to end his hunger strike in exchange for his administrative detention not being renewed.