When Israel was falsely alleged by Hamas to have hit a hospital in Gaza, the Western press turned it into something like the biggest story since V-E Day. I focused on the Wall Street Journal’s nefarious role in promulgating the Hamas propaganda in “Put Abed Khaled to bed” and a few other posts, but the Journal was only an egregious example.
Today brings the news that Iran has hit Israel’s Soroka Hospital in Beersheba with a ballistic missile. Turning to the Journal’s home page this morning, I find that the story barely registers in two brief paragraphs of its updates on the conflict. Jewish Insider summarizes the news this way:
Israelis woke to sirens this morning — a routine occurrence over the past week — but were shocked to learn that Beersheba’s Soroka Medical Center, one of the country’s major hospitals, had been among the sites hit in the most recent barrage of ballistic missiles from Iran. In addition to Soroka, there were direct hits in the Tel Aviv area that wounded 89, including three seriously.
The missile struck the hospital’s old surgical building, severely damaging it and causing what a Soroka spokesperson described as “extensive damage in various areas” of the hospital complex. The surgical building had been recently evacuated in light of the war, and patients and staff had been moved to areas with reinforced walls. Injuries from the strike were light, hospital representatives said.
Soroka is the largest hospital in the Negev, such that the strike left a large swath of Israel without a functioning major medical center. Other hospitals in the area, including Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon and Assuta Medical Center in Ashdod, prepared to take in patients from buildings that were damaged. Magen David Adom provided four intensive care buses, able to transport a total of 23 ICU patients and 50 lightly injured casualties.
The Times of Israel has more here. In the daily newsletter It’s Noon In Israel, Amit Segal adds this footnote:
There was…a miracle within the tragedy. After the strike, the head of the Magen David Adom ambulance service revealed that last night, following directions from the Ministry of Health, Soroka evacuated patients from certain floors. One of those evacuated floors was hit this morning—and we can only imagine how many lives were saved.
The jihadist genocidaires pride themselves on loving death more than we love life. It’s something like an article of faith. Is it wrong to hope the Israelis can help Iran’s Supreme Leader consummate his love of death?
