At least 240 people were wounded by the Iranian missiles, four of them seriously, according to Israel's Health Ministry. The vast majority were lightly wounded, including more than 70 people from the Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba, where smoke rose as emergency teams evacuated patients.
Two doctors told The Associated Press that the missile struck almost immediately after air raid sirens went off, causing a loud explosion that could be heard from a safe room. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The hospital said the main impact was on an old surgery building that had been evacuated in recent days. After the strike, the medical facility was closed to all patients except for life-threatening cases, it said. Soroka has over 1,000 beds and provides services to around 1 million residents of Israel’s south.
In the aftermath of the strikes, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz blamed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and said the military "has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist.”
U.S. officials said this week that President Donald Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei. Trump later said there were no plans to kill him “at least not for now.”
Israel carried out strikes on Iran's Arak heavy water reactor in its latest attack on the country's sprawling nuclear program. The conflict began last Friday with a surprise wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting military sites, senior officers and nuclear scientists.
