Tel Aviv, June 19 (UNI) Israel's Soroka hospital in Beer Sheba and seven sites in the centre of the country were hit during a ballistic missile attack from Iran on Thursday morning.
Iran fired a barrage of some 30 ballistic missiles early Thursday, scoring a direct hit on Israel’s main southern hospital, the Soroka Medical Center. The two other impacts were felt in the central cities of Holon and Ramat Gan that wounded dozens of people, including six in serious condition.
The Magen David Adom emergency service said that a man, 80, and two women, both in their 70s, were among six people seriously hurt. Two people were moderately injured, and at least 42 others suffered light injuries from shock waves and shrapnel at the various impact sites. In addition, 18 people were lightly injured as they scrambled to bomb shelters when sirens went off, Israeli news sites reported.
Following the missile strike on Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, there was a suspicion of a leak of hazardous materials on an upper floor of the building. The police have begun evacuating and removing people from the area, Israeli news sites reported.
Doctors were in shelters with patients at the time of the impact.
The hospital’s director general Prof. Shlomi Kodesh told the media, “A missile hit the old surgical ward building at Soroka. It’s a relatively old building that had been evacuated in recent days.”
He added, “There is widespread damage to other buildings at the hospital. All patients and all staff were in shelters. The several injured we have are lightly hurt, mostly from the blast shockwave.”
The Ministry of Health issued a directive to hospitals to prepare to receive patients from Soroka.
Iran said it did not aim for Soroka, claiming that the target was a military base near the hospital.
A person who was at the scene, said: "There is almost no place in the hospital that was not damaged. The ceilings fell, the medical teams rushed to get the patients into a protected space."
There are no Israeli military facilities in the vicinity of Soroka Hospital. The IDF’s Southern Command base is located over two kilometers away, and there is an under-construction army base just over a kilometer away.
The Soroka hospital has over 1,000 beds and provides services to the approximately 1 million residents of Israel’s south, according to the hospital’s website.
Many hospitals in Israel activated emergency plans in the past week, converting underground parking to hospital wards and moving patients underground, especially those who are on ventilators or are difficult to move quickly.
The barrage of dozens of missiles from Iran was fired Thursday morning, after a quiet night. At least seven impact sites are currently known, including in the centre and south.
Air raid sirens were activated across the country following the wave of missile launches from Iran.
Israel began attacking Iranian nuclear and military sites last week, citing the immediate existential threat they pose. UNI ANV SSP