Hospitals in north ordered to move patients to fortified areas amid rocket fire
Haifa’s Rambam will shift activities to underground parking lot, while other medical facilities move treatments to protected areas, scrap elective procedures
The Health Ministry on Sunday ordered hospitals in northern Israel to move patients to protected areas amid increased Hezbollah rocket fire from Lebanon.
The order affected Haifa’s Rambam and Carmel medical centers, Ziv Medical Center in Safed, Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, HaEmek Medical Center in Afula, Baruch Padeh Medical Center outside Tiberias, and the Italian and English hospitals in Nazareth.
All elective activity at the hospitals has been canceled, the ministry said in a statement.
Rambam hospital was to move medical care to its fortified underground parking lot, and surgeries would take place only with approval.
The decision came following a consultation of the hospital’s management team with the director-general of the Health Ministry regarding the security situation.
A spokesperson for Rambam told Hebrew-language outlets that patients would be moved from wards to the fortified underground area, adding that it will take several hours and impact several hundred patients. Any patients who can be discharged will be sent home, the hospital said.
Some 85 rockets were fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon at the Haifa area on Sunday morning, following 24 overnight launches at the Jezreel Valley, the terror group’s deepest rocket fire into Israel since the beginning of the war in October.
A teenager was killed in a traffic accident as sirens sounded in the early hours of the morning, and four people in the vehicle were injured, according to police.
At least three people were injured near Haifa as a result of the rocket fire — a man in his 70s who was in moderate condition, and another man in his 70s and a 16-year-old girl who were lightly hurt. All three were taken to Rambam hospital for treatment.
In a statement, Hezbollah claimed that the rocket fire targeted a Rafael defense firm facility in the Haifa area.
Hezbollah also took responsibility for the barrage launched at the Jezreel Valley, claiming to have targeted the Israeli Air Force’s Ramat David Airbase, located some 50 kilometers from the Lebanon border.
The Iran-backed terror group said the rockets were in response to the pager and walkie-talkie blasts in Lebanon last week, which killed more than 30 members of the terror group and wounded thousands of others. The attack was attributed to Israel, which has not commented.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report
