For the final three months, the view from Soroka College Medical Middle גirector Prof. Shlomi Codish’s workplace window has been of crumbling concrete, twisted steel and a tangled mess of wires and pipes, the legacy of an Iranian ballistic missile with a big explosive warhead.
On June 19, the missile slammed into the hospital’s surgical ward, simply 100 yards from Codish’s workplace, injuring greater than 80 individuals and wrecking eight working rooms together with six analysis laboratories.
Months later, a number of hospital departments, together with rehabilitation, and intensive care stay closed.
In line with Codish, performing Well being Minister Haim Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich each agree on the need of urgently repairing the hospital, which serves a million individuals within the Negev, together with communities close to the Gaza Strip, a mission anticipated to price about NIS 1.2 billion ($280 million).
However securing the funds has been a problem, Codish advised The Occasions of Israel.
The federal government and Clalit Well being Providers, which owns the hospital, just lately moved nearer to agreeing to pay for two-thirds of the renovation, Codish mentioned, with the remainder of the cash anticipated to return from non-public donors.
Codish met with Smotrich, Katz, Beersheba Mayor Rubik Danilovich and different authorities officers on the hospital on September 1, when he hosted a gathering of the Knesset Particular Committee for Strengthening and Growing the Negev and Galilee.
Soroka Medical Middle broken by an Iranian ballistic missile assault on June 19, 2025. (Courtesy/Soroka Medical Middle spokesperson’s workplace)
Smotrich ordered the institution of a joint working workforce to construct the define for rehabilitating the broken hospital buildings, figuring out the price range, and choosing companions for the mission.
“Soroka Hospital is the center of public drugs within the Negev,” Smotrich mentioned. “We’re working quickly to launch the rehabilitation of the medical middle.”
Smotrich’s spokesperson mentioned final week that the federal government our bodies are “all taking part” within the mission and there was “progress and good work.”
Codish mirrored on the assembly by recalling an outdated Yiddish saying, “You’ll be able to solely depend your cash whereas in your method down the steps” — principally, don’t depend your chickens earlier than they hatch.
“This entire area of the nation is actually counting on what occurs subsequent,” he mentioned.
Evacuating the constructing the day earlier than the Iranian assault
On June 18, in the course of the Israel-Iran warfare, Codish ordered the evacuation of about 60 % of Constructing 12, which housed sufferers. The subsequent day, an Iranian missile scored a direct hit on that actual constructing.
“Individuals speak concerning the miracle of evacuating the ground the day earlier than the assault,” he mentioned. “However we will’t depend on miracles.”
The constructing has 270 beds, none of which have been in areas fortified towards missile assaults.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, middle, with performing Well being Minister Haim Katz, proper, and Codish, left, at a gathering to debate the rehabiliation of Soroka Medical Middle on September 1, 2025. (Courtesy/Smotrich Spokesperson’s Workplace)
“It was operational inside Well being Ministry rules, nevertheless it’s unconscionable” to have sufferers in hurt’s method, he mentioned.
A lot of the hospital was emptied within the wake of the missile strike, however engineers rapidly checked buildings to ensure they have been protected. Codish received the emergency division again up and operating and ordered the remaining working rooms to be ready to cope with sufferers ought to missiles goal the realm once more.
Six days later, one other Iranian missile hit an residence constructing in Beersheba, killing 4 residents and injuring at the very least 22 others.
“Individuals want to appreciate how vital the hospital is and the way damage we’re proper now,” Codish mentioned.
Soroka Medical Middle working room after the Iranian ballistic missile assault on June 19, 2025. (Courtesy/Soroka Spokesperson Workplace)
The hospital is now working with 25% fewer beds than earlier than the assault and 36% fewer working rooms, solely 14 of that are protected towards rocket fireplace. 4 of them are within the maternity ward.
Wards have additionally been shuffled round or squeezed collectively to cope with the shortfall, corresponding to a gynecology division that was shut down and transformed right into a shared ward for each the urology and ophthalmology departments.
Codish mentioned the primary precedence for the hospital is to right away restore the broken working rooms and intensive care items in order that the hospital can return to performing at 100% capability, with all working rooms protected.
“If somebody has a coronary heart assault within the Negev throughout a time of escalation in combating, both the medical workforce goes into an unprotected room to save lots of your life or they don’t, and also you both don’t stay or you may have vital cardiac harm,” Codish mentioned. “This Russian roulette has to finish.”
He mentioned that after the plans for the hospital are finalized, the development of a brand new utterly protected constructing will take six or seven years.
“And hopefully individuals can have the imaginative and prescient to assist us with that,” he mentioned of efforts to boost cash for the mission. “As a result of that’s the actual problem.”
The discount in working rooms has additionally restricted work alternatives for medical professionals, resulting in fears that they’ll depart the hospital to work elsewhere.
A Soroka Medical Middle trauma workforce takes care of a wounded particular person, June 24, 2025. (Courtesy/Soroka Medical Middle)
“Nurses are already leaving,” Codish mentioned.
Docs are additionally contemplating leaving, he mentioned, and he sees fewer residents beginning to work on the hospital as a result of the coaching program is inferior to it was, since there are fewer operations.
“In a couple of years, there will likely be fewer docs locally, and also you’re going to be paying for that for a few years to return,” he mentioned.
A 3rd problem is fortifying a lot of the remainder of the hospital to make sure affected person security throughout potential future conflicts.
The hospital on the frontline
Soroka was constructed within the Fifties to satisfy the wants of troopers and civilians in an space the place combating with Egypt was nonetheless ongoing, Codish defined.
“You already know, 70 years later, we’re nonetheless doing the identical factor, nonetheless on the frontline,” Codish mentioned.
On October 7, 2023, when 1000’s of Hamas-led terrorists stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 individuals and inflicting widespread accidents, Soroka was among the many closest hospitals to the violence, treating 674 casualties that day alone.
Wounded Israelis arrive on the Soroka Medical middle in Beersheba, southern Israel, October 7, 2023. (Dudu Greenspan/Flash90)
It was the most important mass casualty incident at one hospital in Israeli historical past, Codish mentioned.
“It was actually an outlier occasion in human historical past, and due to our ethos, what we’re meant to do, nearly nobody died that day at Soroka,” he mentioned. “When you made it to Soroka alive, you left alive. Everybody actually did.”
The hospital continues to be on the entrance traces, repeatedly taking in troopers wounded within the persevering with warfare in Gaza and evacuated from the Strip by helicopter.
For the reason that warfare started, the hospital has handled over 4,400 casualties, together with greater than 3,300 wounded troopers.
President Isaac Herzog, left, visits the positioning of an Iranian ballistic missile assault on Soroka Medical Middle in Beersheba, alongside the hospital’s director-general, Dr. Shlomi Codish. June 19, 2025. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
Fortified below fireplace
Codish believes reinforcing a lot of the hospital is lengthy overdue, after many years of rocket fireplace from Gaza.
For the previous 20 years, he mentioned, the hospital has had “infinite cycles of closing and opening wards and shifting sufferers throughout escalations of combating.”
Reinforcing extra of the hospital towards rockets and missiles will assist appeal to new residents to the south, in addition to convey again these from communities that have been evacuated, he mentioned.
“This could have occurred lengthy earlier than, however I feel an Iranian missile hitting the middle was probably the most vital wakeup name,” Codish mentioned. “We should be higher ready and never depend on miracles.”
