Foreign Minister Golda Meir is returning this week to Hadassah Hospital and will submit to another operation, it was learned today. The leg wound Mrs. Meir suffered in the Knesset bombing two weeks ago is not responding to treatment.
Premier David Ben Gurion is expected to leave the hospital before the week-end. He continues to function as Premier and Defense Minister from his bed. President Itzhak Ben Zvi and Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen Moshe Dayan visited him today. Daily bulletins on the Prime Minister’s condition have been discontinued, hospital officials said, because the Premier is sufficiently recovered so that his condition does not warrant concern.
Moshe Shapira, the Minister of Health, who was most seriously injured in the grenade attack by a madman, is progressing satisfactorily. Yesterday, he underwent minor surgery for the removal of a grenade splinter from his leg. This is expected to be the last of several operations resulting from injuries he received in the blast.
A proposal that ushers in the Knesset carry small arms and be given the status of special policemen was made here today as an aftermath to the outrage that occurred two weeks ago when a demented Israeli threw a hand grenade at the Government bench in the Knesset, wounding five members of the Cabinet. The proposal was made by members of the Israel Security Service testifying before the Parliamentary Committee.
Some of the members of the Parliamentary Committee are reportedly opposed to arming the ushers. They question whether the atmosphere at the Knesset would not be disrupted as a result of the “martial appearance” of armed ushers. Other committee members do not favor the proposal because some of the ushers are middle-aged men presumably unaccustomed to carrying weapons.
An alternate proposal to the committee is that the ushers should continue to hold their present status, assigned only to showing visitors to their seats, while a newly-established Knesset Guard unit would be established. The latter unit, according to this plan, would be made up of younger, able-bodied men who would carry arms.
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