Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas left the Ramallah medical center early Thursday evening, on foot, after undergoing an angiogram (cardiac catheterization).
The 81-year-old Arab leader was seen in live television footage smiling and waving to reporters before being driven to his home from the hospital, according to Reuters.
‘Thank God everything is fine, I had the surgery, it was easy and I’m leaving now,” Abbas told Palestine TV just before getting into a car to leave the hospital.
A doctor at the medical center told the news agency said the tests administered to Abbas, including the angiogram, all showed “normal results.”
Abbas was hospitalized earlier in the day for “routine tests,” said Saeed Sarahneh, a senior doctor at Istishari Arab Hospital in Ramallah, who briefed journalists while the PA leader was still in the medical center.
“We performed a [cardiac] catheterization. The results look normal,” he added.
Abbas was admitted after he reportedly “collapsed from exhaustion,” according to a source close to his office quoted by the Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency.
The PA leader, now in the 11th year of a four-year term, has been known to have heart problems for some time, although no official acknowledgement about his condition has ever been made by his office.
Abbas was severely criticized by many political opponents for having attended last week’s state funeral in Jerusalem for Israel’s ninth President, Shimon Peres, z’l.