The Finance Committee of the Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, has approved a decision for the family of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to pay half of his medical care expenses. Sharon has been in a coma for five years and the annual cost of looking after him is around NIS 1,500,000 (almost half-a-million US dollars).
In January 2006, the former premier, infamous for his massacres against Palestinians, suffered a brain haemorrhage which left him in a coma. In 2010, he was moved to a specially-prepared room at his home in Havat Shikmim for 48-hours as a test to see if medical equipment and preparations were installed properly pending a permanent move there.