Iranian missile strikes hospital, prompting Israeli threat of retaliation

BEERSHEBA, Israel – An Iranian missile hit one of Israel’s largest hospitals on Thursday, damaging the facility, causing minor injuries and prompting vows of retribution from Israeli officials as they continued a week-long bombing campaign against Iran.

The missile struck the surgery department of the Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba shortly after 7 a.m. local time. The blast sparked a fire in the building and shattered windows across the hospital complex.

Hospital officials said about 80 people were lightly injured. Shlomi Codish, the hospital’s director, said many of their injuries came from broken glass and ceiling debris. The wing that was hit directly was evacuated earlier, so the department was empty at the time of the attack, Codish told reporters.

Joseph Kushnir, a psychiatrist at the hospital, was on his way to work when the sirens went off. He arrived at the scene shortly after the strike and saw a column of thick black smoke rising above the hospital, he said. “It was total chaos, basically,” he said. “We were prepared for a mass-casualty event; fortunately it didn’t happen.”

At the time of the attack, 700 patients were present throughout the hospital, the medical facility’s administration said in a statement on X. About 300 patients remain there.

IRNA, Iran’s official news agency, said Iran was targeting the headquarters of the IDF’s elite technological unit and an “intelligence camp” in the Gav-Yam Negev Advanced Technologies Park about a mile away from the hospital. The IDF has been preparing to move thousands of soldiers who perform technological functions to a newly built hub near that site, Israeli media reported. A military school for software and cyberdefense was inaugurated in the adjacent tech park in 2022.

The IDF press desk did not respond to requests for comment.

Two areas in central Israel – in Ramat Gan and Holon – were also hit in the same early morning barrage of Iranian missiles, which damaged apartment buildings and injured dozens of people, at least two seriously, according to Israel’s emergency services. The Israeli military’s Home Front Command said Iran had used a type of cluster bomb – a missile designed to scatter smaller munitions over a larger area – and warned civilians to look out for unexploded ordnance.

Israeli officials lambasted the strike on the Soroka hospital as an example of Iran’s intent to harm civilians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting the site later Thursday, said: “We are striking nuclear and missile targets with precision, and they hit a children’s ward in a hospital. That says it all.”

“They are aiming to kill as many civilians as they can,” said Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces. “This is exactly why we launched this operation.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the Israeli military to “intensify strikes against strategic targets in Iran and government sites in Tehran” in retaliation, he said in a statement. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will be held accountable for the attack, Katz added.

Since it attacked Iran last week, sparking the conflict, Israel has struck sites linked to Iran’s nuclear program, missile launchers and government facilities. It has also hit residential buildings to assassinate military leaders and nuclear scientists, in strikes that have killed civilians in Tehran and other cities. More than 50 women and children have been killed, the semiofficial Iranian news agency Tasnim reported Wednesday.

In Gaza, Israel’s military has come under international criticism for repeatedly targeting hospitals. Israeli officials have said that Hamas infrastructure is under or within the medical facilities, though they have presented scant evidence. Civilians have been killed by munitions, died after being cut off from medical care or been detained by Israeli forces in the course of these attacks.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said its warplanes hit Iran’s Khondab heavy water research reactor, located outside of the western city of Arak, overnight. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement the reactor was under construction and contained no nuclear material, meaning the strike had no radiological effects.

Israel also said it struck targets around Tehran and near Natanz, which the IDF said is hosting a nuclear weapons development site that “contained components and specialized equipment used to advance nuclear weapons development.”

The Israeli military estimates it has destroyed two-thirds of Iran’s missile launchers over the past week, according to a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to brief reporters on military operations. The official did not provide supporting evidence.

A near-total internet blackout in Iran – which Tehran said it imposed to scramble Israel’s targeting system – stretched into a second day Thursday, making it difficult to obtain information about the impact of Israeli strikes on the ground.

In Washington, President Donald Trump is still weighing whether to intervene directly in the conflict. World leaders and top diplomats in Europe, the Middle East, Russia and China are pushing to de-escalate the situation and return the parties to the negotiating table before a possible U.S. attack materializes.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain are scheduled to meet with E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and then hold talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Friday, two officials familiar with the planning said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. European officials are updating their U.S. counterparts on the planned talks, though a direct U.S. role is not expected, one of the officials said.

Iranian officials have conveyed that “there is a will to resume talks, including with the Americans, on condition that a ceasefire can be reached,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said.