Beersheba, Israel (Reuters)-Broken glasses and piles of rubble scattered through the floors of Medical Center this Thursday after an Iranian missile hit the hospital in southern Israel, injuring dozens of people.
The main public hospital, which serves about 1 million people living in southern Israel, suffered great damage to the attack. Several wings were completely destroyed, with debris scattered throughout the parking lot and the surrounding catwalks.
“We knew, by the noise, that it was nothing that we were used to, that it was not like anything we had seen before,” said Nissim Huri, who was working in the hospital kitchen and took refuge in a concrete shelter during the attack. It was terrifying, ”said Huri, describing the scenes when she left the shelter as” complete destruction. “
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Israel launched an air war against Iran last Friday, calling it preventive attack designed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran has denied plans to develop such weapons and retaliated by throwing counter-attacks against Israel.
The hospital team said the explosion was so strong that it was played backwards. On the afternoon of Thursday, they were sitting in the hospital courtyard watching videos showing large clouds of smoke.
Israel’s Ministry of Health said 71 people were injured in the attack, most of them suffering minor injuries or panic attacks as they ran to take shelter. The hospital staff evacuated the patients and isolated damaged areas.
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The hospital began to remove patients from some buildings in recent days as part of emergency precautions in response to Iranian attacks. Since then, it has limited admissions to life -threatening cases only.
Damaged building patients were taken to an underground installation a few hours before the attack, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health of Israel.
Yogev Vizman, who went to the scene shortly after the explosion, said he witnessed the “total destruction” when he arrived. “The whole building was on fire … Everything collapsed,” said Vizman. “I’m sad, it’s like my house, they just destroyed our house … I never thought there would be a direct attack on a hospital.”
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An Israeli soldier told Reuters that everything he saw at the beginning was “thick black smoke” and that they inspected all floors in search of victims.
