Israel orders hospitals in northern Israel to operate in ‘safe zones’ and bunkers

September 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Israeli government on Sunday ordered all hospitals in the north of the country to operate from underground departments amid an upsurge in fighting with the Shiite militia party Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon and fears of a full-scale war.

The Israeli Ministry of Health has published a statement on its website arguing that “the current security context” has led to the decision that “all hospitals in northern Israel will operate from safe zones.”

The measure affects Carmel, Ziv, Nahariya, HaEmek, Poroya, Italian and English hospitals, while he stressed that operations at Rambam Hospital are being moved to an underground facility.

“The hospital is in the process of relocating patients to apartments located in an underground parking facility until further notice,” he said, adding that “elective” medical procedures have been cancelled.

Rambam Hospital is the largest in the area and is located in the city of Haifa. The facility features a bunkerized area built in 2014 that “can be transformed in 72 hours from a three-story underground parking lot with space for 1,500 vehicles to a 2,000-bed hospital.”

“This bunker facility serves the region during extreme emergencies: chemical or biological threats, natural disasters, medical crises, and national security events such as the current war,” it says on its website. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became Israel’s largest COVID-19 treatment center,” it notes.

The escalation of clashes between Israel and Hezbollah – a group supported by Iran that has significant military and political clout in Lebanon – has raised fears of the possibility of an expansion of the conflict in the Middle East. In this context, the Israeli army presented its “operational plans” regarding Lebanon to the United States last week.