For almost eight years he has been in a hospital bed, sometimes apparently awake and looking out with what one of his sons described as "a penetrating stare".
But despite the best hopes of his family after he suffered a massive stroke in January 2006, the ventilator and feeding tubes that have kept Ariel Sharon alive to the age of 85 have not enabled him to regain consciousness.
Now Israel is coming to terms with the likelihood that its former political leader and one of its most decorated generals is finally on the verge of death, after doctors warned that his kidneys and several other vital organs had malfunctioned, apparently because of an infection.
His two sons, Gilad and Omri, were keeping vigil at his bedside at the Sheba Medical Centre in Tel Hashomer Hospital, near Tel Aviv, Thursday as Israeli officials said plans were in hand to stage a state funeral for one of the most controversial figures in the country's history.
"He is in critical condition and his life is definitely in danger," Dr. Zeev Rotstein, the hospital's director, said. "I am no prophet, but the feeling of the doctors treating him and also that of the family with him is that there is a turn for the worse."
The elaborate arrangements required for a state funeral would mean the suspension of the usually strict Jewish religious edict requiring the dead to be buried within a day, said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Israeli premier. That would allow world leaders more time to attend.
"Jewish law is very strict on the day-after rule but it is possible to be flexible on this issue," he said.
The funeral will also pose a delicate diplomatic dilemma for foreign leaders: Sharon was found by an official inquiry to have "personal responsibility" for the 1982 massacre of civilians in Sabra and Chatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut following Israel's invasion of Lebanon, which he masterminded.
From being one of Israel's most decorated military generals - distinguished by his physical bulk - he was a prime minister at the height of his political powers when he collapsed so suddenly and completely that doctors advised his family that he should be allowed to die.
A computerized tomography (CT) scan found that he had suffered incurable brain damage from his stroke. The doctors responded by trying to minimize his suffering by placing him in a medically induced coma.
His son, Gilad, later summarized the medical advice as: "Based on the CT scan, the game was over."
But the two brothers insisted that their father be kept alive. "I would never be able to forgive myself if we did not fight to the end," wrote Gilad in a biography of his father, Sharon: The Life of a Leader. Doctors carried out an emergency operation designed to relieve pressure on the brain and Gilad Sharon later wrote that the initial CT scan had been misread: on closer examination, the brain damage proved not quite as bad as had been thought. Thereafter he was visited by his two sons daily, but was reduced to a permanent vegetative state. A hospital manager said, "The part of the brain that keeps his body functioning - his vital organs - is intact, but beyond that there is nothing, just fluid."
His sudden decline Thursday coincided with the arrival of John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, in Israel for his 10th visit in 10 months aimed at keeping alive a stuttering peace talks with the Palestinians.
ANN.Az
