"So Sad": Israelis Shocked By Iran Strike On Hospital

Tel Aviv:
The damage was hard to comprehend for many at Israel's Soroka Hospital as staff took stock of the wreckage after a strike by an Iranian ballistic missile on Thursday left part of the facility in ruins.
The strike in the southern city of Beersheba caused extensive damage to the hospital's entrance hall and several departments, including the ophthalmology unit on the third floor of the surgical building.
The explosion shattered windows, hurling glass across the hospital, brought ceilings crashing down, destroyed medical equipment and left corridors in disarray.
"It's so sad, I never thought something like this could happen. Never. It's only medical professionals here, and patients... and look what happened to us," Wasim Hin, an ophthalmologist at Soroka Medical Centre, told AFP.
"Here we have new equipment, everything was destroyed."
Yael Tiv, an officer in the Home Front command, said the damage was the result of a "direct hit" by a missile.
"You can see the damage inside. Shattered windows, the ceilings that fell. It's a really awful scenario inside," she added.
The hospital's director and other workers said that lives had been saved because the structure hit in the attack had been evacuated in recent days.
- Building evacuated -
"It's a miracle. The building had just been evacuated," maintenance worker Kevin Azoulay told AFP.
Even still, 40 people sustained injuries during the attack.
"Several wards were completely demolished and there is extensive damage across the entire hospital with damage to buildings, structures, windows, ceilings across the medical centre," director Shlomi Codish told journalists.
Israel's multi-layered air defence systems have managed to intercept most of the missiles and drones targeting the country during the last week of fighting between Israel and Iran.
But some have managed to slip through, wreaking widespread damage at the point of impact.
The Soroka complex is the largest hospital in southern Israel and a primary medical centre for Bedouin communities in the Negev Desert, as well as for wounded Israeli soldiers returning from the war in Gaza.
The UN's World Health Organisation leader on Thursday denounced attacks on health facilities in the Iran-Israel war as "appalling".
At the WHO annual assembly last month, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had also urged Israel to show "mercy" in its bombardment and siege of Gaza, saying it was "wrong to weaponise" food and medical supplies.
- 'Pay a heavy price' -
Arriving at the scene of Soroka Hospital to survey the damage Thursday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed swift revenge for the attack.
"We will make the tyrants in Tehran pay a heavy price," Netanyahu said in a post on X.
Iranian authorities later said the barrage had targeted a nearby Israeli command post and intelligence base, according to a report published by the state news agency IRNA.
Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also weighed in.
"In this operation, the regime's command and intelligence centre near a hospital was targeted with highly accurate and guided missiles," the force said in a statement.
Elsewhere in Israel on Thursday, buildings were also damaged in the central towns of Ramat Gan and Holon, close to coastal hub Tel Aviv, which has been repeatedly targeted by Iranian missiles since war broke out between the countries last Friday.
"The truth is, God is with us and the government must keep doing what it's doing," said Renana, a resident of a building hit in Ramat Gan.
Back at Soroka Hospital, Boris Knaizer, who heads the ophthalmology department, was at a loss.
He said the department treated around 50,000 patients a year.
"And now, how are we going to receive them?" he asked. "We have no idea, we have no space, we have no rooms, everything has been destroyed."

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6 hours ago

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"So Sad": Israelis Shocked By Iran Strike On Hospital

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How risky are Israel's strikes for nuclear contamination in Iran?

Tensions escalated in the Middle East as Israel continues its military campaign against Iran. While Israel claims that its goal is to put an end to Iran's nuclear weapons program and environmental, human risks are increasing from attacks on nuclear facilities. Till now, experts have stated the risk of nuclear contamination is low -- but the fear of disaster is to news agency Reuters, the alarm reached a new peak when the Israeli military struck Bushehr, Iran's only operational nuclear power plant on the Gulf coast. Israel later clarified that they mistakenly made the announcement and Bushehr was not actually HAS BEEN TARGETED?Israel has confirmed strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites, including Natanz, Isfahan, Arak, and parts of Tehran, Reuters reported. These locations are all linked to Iran's nuclear program. While Iran has been saying that its nuclear enrichment programme is for peaceful purposes, Israel and the US say program is intended to develop nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified damage at multiple sites. This includes the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, a nuclear complex in Isfahan, and centrifuge production centres in Karaj and key target, on Thursday, was Arak, also known as Khondab, where a heavy-water research reactor is located. This type of reactor can potentially produce plutonium, which can be used as an alternate material used in nuclear weapons. The IAEA confirmed that this reactor had been hit but retaliated that it was not operational at the time and there were no signs of radiation RADIATION RISK SO FARDespite the attacks, experts currently believe the danger of nuclear fallout has been Bryant, a professor at the University of Liverpool who specialises in radiation protection and nuclear energy policy, said that while these strikes raise serious concerns, they haven't resulted in a release of radioactive material. "The issue is controlling what has happened inside that facility, but nuclear facilities are designed for that," he said. He added that uranium in low concentrations is only harmful if it enters the body through inhalation or Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), pointed out that many of the facilities targeted are part of the early stages of the nuclear fuel process. This means that the risk is more chemical than also noted that weather conditions play a crucial role in how any leaked material might spread. "In low winds, much of the material can be expected to settle in the vicinity of the facility; in high winds, the material will travel farther, but is also likely to disperse more widely," she said. Since many of Iran's nuclear sites are underground, the possibility of dispersal is attacks on enrichment facilities carry limited fallout risks; experts are more worried about the potential consequences of a strike on a nuclear reactor—particularly the one at Wakeford, an honorary professor at the University of Manchester, said that enrichment facility damage is largely a "chemical problem," but an attack on a functioning power reactor could lead to the release of large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere or Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned that hitting the Bushehr plant "could cause an absolute radiological catastrophe." However, he noted that so far, Israel's strikes on other sites have "virtually no radiological consequences." He added, "Before uranium goes into a nuclear reactor, it is barely radioactive. The chemical form uranium hexafluoride is toxic... but it actually doesn't tend to travel large distances."advertisementGULF STATES FEAR OF THEIR WATER SUPPLYFor countries who share borders in the Gulf region, the fear is increasing day by day -- not only because of the radiation threat, but because of what it could mean for their water supply. Many of these nations are dependent almost entirely on seawater desalination to meet their drinking water United Arab Emirates gets more than 80% of its drinking water from desalinated sources. Bahrain has been fully reliant on desalinated water since 2016, and Qatar also depends entirely on it. Even Saudi Arabia, which has larger natural groundwater reserves, still gets around half its water from desalination, according to recent desalination plants sit along the Gulf coast -- close to where a potential nuclear incident could occur. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE have access to both the Gulf and other bodies of water, giving them some backup options. But others -- like Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait -- have no other coastline to fall back on."If a natural disaster, oil spill, or even a targeted attack were to disrupt a desalination plant, hundreds of thousands could lose access to freshwater almost instantly," said Nidal Hilal, Professor of Engineering and Director of New York University Abu Dhabi's Water Research inputs from ReutersMust Watch