Doctors treating Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon expected to make a decision yesterday on when to try to bring him out of a medically induced coma and assess the extent of brain damage from a severe stroke.

Surgeons at Jerusalem?s Hadassah hospital, where the 77-year-old has been under sedation and on a respirator since Wednesday?s stroke, say there is a good chance he will survive but do not know how much his faculties have been impaired.

?Tomorrow is the day of truth?, neurosurgeon Jose Cohen told Channel 2 television late on Saturday. ?Tomorrow we will all know if what we have done so far has helped.?

Earlier, hospital director Shlomo Mor-Yosef said Sharon was still critical but stable after emergency surgery on Friday staunched bleeding in his brain. He said the latest brain scan showed evidence of a slight improvement in Sharon?s condition.

The medical consensus was that even if he survived, Sharon ? for many, Israel?s most dominant figure since founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ? was unlikely to return to politics.

The death or incapacity of Sharon, who raised peace hopes by pulling Israeli settlers and troops out of Gaza in September to end 38 years of military rule, would create a void in Israeli politics and efforts to forge peace with the Palestinians.

Mor-Yosef said a decision on when to try to awaken Sharon would be taken early yesterday and only then would doctors be able to assess how much brain damage he had suffered.

?We as human beings are optimistic?, he told reporters in a news conference broadcast live throughout the Jewish state on Saturday. ?But I cannot say that the prime minister has come out of danger...there are very slight signs of improvement.?

Cohen said Sharon?s chances of survival were ?very high?. ?I am pretty optimistic about it. We are praying there won?t be complications, like catching an infection?, Channel 2 quoted him as saying. But he stressed Sharon would not be unscathed: ?To say that after a severe impact like this one there would not be cognitive problems is just not acknowledging reality.?

?He is just a real warrior?

Doctors also said there was no guarantee Sharon would regain consciousness even when his sedation was lifted. Hospital officials said they would give an update on his condition at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT).

Sharon underwent a new computerised brain scan on Saturday that Mor-Yosef said showed swelling caused by fluid build-up in the brain had decreased and pressure had returned to normal.

?We are all impressed by how strong he is and how much he is fighting?, Cohen said. ?He is just a real warrior, it is his nature?.

From Jerusalem synagogues where worshippers prayed for his recovery to Tel Aviv beach cafes where youths carried surfboards, Israelis anxiously followed the ex-general?s fate. At an Israeli league soccer match on Saturday, loudspeakers announced: ?Today we are playing soccer but all our eyes are on the hospital?. Fans chanted their support.

Throughout the Jewish state, radios were tuned to news broadcasts for any scrap of new information. World leaders pledged support for Sharon?s deputy, Ehud Olmert, appointed acting Prime Minister.

Sharon is reviled in the Arab world but increasingly seen by the West as having opened up new prospects for peace. He suffered the stroke at a crucial juncture as he was fighting for re-election on a promise to end conflict with the Palestinians.

Bold steps towards reconciliation

Political analysts said Israel?s March 28 election, which Sharon had been widely expected to win as head of the new centrist Kadima party, would become an open race without him.

Much of Sharon?s popularity among Israelis stems from a belief he could take bold steps towards reconciliation with the Palestinians which others would not get away with, given his background as the archetypal hawk.

But Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, a key member of Kadima, said the party would move ahead with Sharon?s vision even if he did not return to politics. ?Kadima?s political path ... explains the principles of how to handle the conflict with the Palestinians?, she said.

Sharon had been campaigning on a platform of readiness to give up some occupied land in the West Bank, but has vowed to hold on to major West Bank settlement blocs, a prospect Palestinians say would deny them a viable state.

Corinne HELLER