Iran strikes major Israeli hospital, warns war could spread ‘across the region’ if US gets involved

The missile attack launched by Iran against Israel early Thursday morning has been one of the most intense since the Jewish state began its offensive against the Islamic Republic a week ago, prompting Iran to respond. The main target hit was Soroka Hospital, one of Israel’s largest medical centers, located in the southern city of Beersheba, where around 40 people have been injured, according to medical staff. The building struck by the missile had been evacuated days earlier, but patients and workers in nearby facilities suffered cuts from broken glass and other injuries.

Several residential areas in Holon and Ramat Gan, part of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, were also hit by Iranian missiles, leaving six people seriously injured. Meanwhile, before dawn, the Israeli Air Force bombed multiple targets in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and issued evacuation orders to the population.

Amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambiguous stance on the possibility of U.S. troops becoming involved in the conflict, Israeli officials cited by Channel 12 — the country’s most-watched network — are confident that U.S. participation in the war against Tehran is inevitable and a matter of time. These sources believe the next two days will be “critical.”

Other local media echo this view, pointing to direct talks between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as contacts between senior officials from both administrations. According to these reports, although the U.S. still needs to finalize the necessary logistics, Israel has already shared intelligence with Washington so that when the order is given, both militaries can act jointly — assuming, as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has stated, that Iran will not surrender.

Senior U.S. officials are preparing to strike in the coming days, possibly even over the weekend, according to sources consulted by Bloomberg. For now, Israel remains at the forefront of the offensive, though it is receiving U.S. assistance to defend against Iranian counterattacks.

Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hatam al-Nabi, warned the United States of severe consequences for regional security if it attacks. “We warn criminal America that any direct involvement in this war will lead to its expansion across the region and result in painful and irreversible blows,” Nabi said in an official statement.

Victims wounded in hospital

Shlomi Kodesh, the director general of Soroka Hospital, explained that 40 people — including both patients and staff — were injured in the Iranian bombing. “It’s shocking that something like this happened,” he told reporters outside the medical center, Reuters reports. Kodesh said that, fortunately, the hospital had been evacuated in recent days and that the building struck directly by the missile was empty, so there were no casualties inside. The injuries occurred in nearby buildings, mostly from cuts caused by broken glass or trauma.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed the attack targeted Israeli military personnel and an intelligence headquarters allegedly located near the medical center.

‘The modern Hitler’

The violence unleashed leaves little hope for a diplomatic solution in the short term. However, Iran’s top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi, is scheduled to participate on Friday in a high-level meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, alongside European leaders.

Following the attack on the hospital and residential areas of Tel Aviv, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz defended the death of the “cowardly Iranian dictator” Ali Khamenei, whom he labeled “the modern Hitler.” “He cannot continue to exist,” Katz said in remarks reported by the Times of Israel.

He added: “I compare it to the scenario in which, during the horrific Holocaust, if the State of Israel had existed and a strong Israel Defense Forces [IDF] had existed, and we knew we could send the IDF into a bunker to capture the enemy of the Jewish people, Hitler, in order to thwart his plan to annihilate the Jews, we would have done it. We would have sent the IDF, extracted him, and eliminated him. And just like that, correspondingly, I see the current situation — Khamenei is the modern Hitler.”

Katz said he and Netanyahu had agreed to instruct the IDF “to increase the intensity of attacks against strategic targets in Iran and against government targets in Tehran in order to remove threats to the State of Israel and undermine the ayatollahs’ regime.” He also described the bombing of Soroka Hospital as a “war crime.”

Since October 2023, Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure has been systematically bombed by the Israeli military. Hundreds of Palestinians have died in those attacks, deaths that Israel justifies as part of its campaign against Hamas.

Shortly after 7 a.m. on Wednesday, the sky over Israel’s largest city, Tel Aviv, shook for several minutes amid massive explosions caused by the activity of the air defense system trying to intercept Iranian projectiles, as observed by EL PAÍS. Meanwhile, millions of people began their day rushing to shelters. This has become the daily routine for nearly a week. Israeli authorities speak about the damage their bombings have inflicted on Iran’s missile arsenal, but the Islamic Republic continues to launch two to three waves on average each day, keeping the Jewish state on high alert.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition