“A great miracle from heaven” – Survivors of missile strike on Israeli hospital say hundreds of lives were saved by last-minute decision to shut down entire floor of the surgical ward and relocate staff and patients.
Survivors of an Iranian missile attack on a hospital in southern Israel say a decision by the Health Ministry less than a day earlier saved the lives of dozens or potentially even hundreds of patients and hospital staff members, in what some called a “miraculous” near-miss.
Just after 7:00 a.m. on Thursday, a ballistic missile launched from Iran slammed into the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, part of a volley including between 20 to 30 missiles.
Hospital officials say the building suffered heavy structural damage in the attack, but added that only one injury has been reported thus far.
The victim, a patient of the hospital, was lightly injured in the attack.
The attack came just hours after Israeli Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman-Tov ordered Soroka’s administration to evacuate the third floor of the building, used for surgeries.
Bar Siman-Tov issued the directive after ministry officials concluded that the third floor was “not safe” given the possibility of missile attacks by Iran.
Patients and staff were relocated from the third floor to lower floors deemed to be less exposed to danger in the event of a missile attack.
A volunteer worker at Soroka, Sarah Bushri, told Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, that the near-miss was a “miracle from heaven.”
“We thought the explosion was right inside the ward. Everything fell apart. Glass, ceilings – everything fell.”
“We evacuated everyone and fortunately not a single patient was hurt, even though there was glass on the beds.”
“We quickly took all the patients to a lower floor and to protected areas,” Bushri continued. “We received a great miracle from heaven.”
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