Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a minor stroke in late December . Sharon who had left the Likud party form a new centrist party called Kadima was serving as Prime Minister until an interim government. Sharon suffered a massive stroke the night before he was to undergo an operation to correct a heart defect thougth to be a contributing cause of the stoke. Sharon underwent three operations to stem the bleeding in his brain. The stroke ended the carreer of the Prime Minister who had been nicknamed the "bulldozer". Sharon through most of his carreer was known as an Israeli "hawk" ended his carreer by leading Israel into making a unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip.