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Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu
A Jerusalem court hearing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial has postponed hearings set for next week as Netanyahu undergoes a prostate operation on Sunday.
NAN reports that the hearings will now be held on January 6 and subsequent days.
Netanyahu is charged with fraud, embezzlement, and bribery.
The accusations against him include that he granted the telecom giant Bezeq privileges when he was communications minister.
He is also said to have accepted luxury gifts from billionaire friends.
At an initial hearing on December 10, he rejected the allegations as “absurd.”
It is the first time that an incumbent prime minister has stood trial in Israel.
The court case could last for several more years.
Netanyahu is expected to testify three times a week for about two months.
He recently excused his absence with a visit to troops on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
His office announced on Saturday that he would undergo an operation for an enlarged prostate.
According to AFP, Netanyahu is to undergo prostate removal surgery on Sunday, his office said after he was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection.
The procedure comes with Israel at war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip more than 14 months after the Palestinian militants carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 last year.
Netanyahu underwent a test at Hadassah Hospital on Wednesday, where he was “diagnosed with a urinary tract infection resulting from a benign prostate enlargement,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
“As a result, the prime minister will undergo prostate removal surgery tomorrow,” it said.
In March, he underwent a hernia surgery, while in July last year, doctors implanted a pacemaker in Netanyahu after a medical scare.
The operation is to take place under general anaesthesia.
It is not his first health procedure. Netanyahu underwent an operation for a hernia at the end of March and, in the summer of last year, was fitted with a pacemaker.
