JERUSALEM, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon remains in critical condition and faces a "immediate danger" to his life, Israeli media reported on Thursday evening.

　　Sharon's life has been hanging in the balance since Tuesday when he suffered a severe kidney failure and a deterioration in the functions of other vital organs, reports said.

　　Earlier on Thursday, a director of Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer near Tel Aviv, where Sharon has been hospitalized since January 2006, said that Sharon, 85, was not receiving dialysis due to potential complications due to his age and already fragile state, but instead was being administered antibiotics to treat infections.

　　"He's getting all the necessary treatments, the same with which he has been given for years," Ze'ev Rothstein told reporters. "If there was a problem in just one organ, it would be a different story, but that is not the case."

　　"Arik is a very strong man," Rothstein said, using Sharon's moniker. "He has come out of difficult situations during the period that he has been in our hospital ... however, both the doctors and his family members ... feel that there has been a change for the worse."

　　He added, "We have no way of knowing how much time he has left. "

　　"It could be a matter of days," the daily Ha'aretz quoted a source familiar with Sharon's condition as saying.

　　Sharon suffered a brain hemorrhage at the height of his premiership in 2006, and has since been comatose and fed fluids through an intravenous tube. He recently spent two weeks in intensive care after undergoing a surgery.

　　Sharon's sons, Omri and Gilad, have been by their father's bedside and consulting with medical staff on further treatment.

　　Sharon, Israel's 11th prime minister, earned a reputation as one of the country's legendary military figures and statesmen.