Medical source: Abbas hospitalised after collapsing from ‘exhaustion’

UPDATE (15:00 GMT):

Abbas has left hospital.

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UPDATE (13:40 GMT):

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas underwent a heart function test in hospital today and the results were normal, a doctor said, after the 81-year-old leader was taken to the facility without any prior public announcement.

Abbas has long been reported to be suffering from heart problems, though Palestinian political officials have never confirmed this.

“The president was hospitalised today for routine tests and we performed a [cardiac] catheterisation. The results look normal and he will leave hospital in the next two hours,” Saeed Sarahneh, a senior doctor at Istishari Arab Hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, told reporters.

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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was taken to hospital in the occupied West Bank today and a medical source said the 81-year-old leader was undergoing a heart test after feeling “tired”.

Abbas, 81, “collapsed from exhaustion,” Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua reported, citing a source close to his office.

However, a statement carried by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, and attributed to a presidential spokesman, said Abbas’ “health condition is very normal”.

Doctors planned to perform a cardiac catheterisation, a procedure in which a thin plastic tube is inserted into an artery or vein, and then advances into the heart chambers to diagnose and clear any blockage, the official said.

Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, was elected as its president in January 2005. He is due to run in the upcoming Palestinian legislative elections which have been surrounded by controversy after a court ruled that they could only be held in the occupied West Bank and not in the Gaza Strip.