The Islamist savages intentionally target hospitals

DISPATCH FROM WILL LLOYD

‘We’re a fortress’: inside the hospital Hezbollah tried to blow up

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/arts/article/inside-ziv-hospital-hezbollah-blow-up-2h8rg0656

Z

iv Medical Centre, an ‘isolated island’ seven miles from the border with Lebanon, has stockpiled medical supplies and food. Casualties are treated underground by staff grieving for their own families.

Resilience is a word that Dr Iris Leitersdorf, the measured and preternaturally calm 58-year-old deputy director-general of Ziv Medical Centre, likes to use. 

Her hospital serves the Upper Galilee region in northern Israel, seven miles from the border with Lebanon, where war rages between four divisions of the Israeli army and Hezbollah.

Ziv is the oldest medical centre in Israel. But in recent months, under the ratcheting dangers of wartime, it has become something else. Something more resilient. “We became a fortress,” said Leitersdorf with a thin smile.

After October 7, Ziv also became a target. On October 8, Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel “in solidarity” with Gaza. About 60,000 Israelis in the north left their homes, many of them in towns where the closest major hospital was Ziv. Does Hezbollah know about the hospital? 

“Oh yes. Hezbollah are hitting us. They are targeting us and we know that we are a target,” Leitersdorf says. In February a Hezbollah missile burrowed into the ground just outside the entrance to the hospital. Fortunately it did not explode.

The terror group released a video the same month in which shots of ambulances arriving at the hospital were juxtaposed with a map of northern Israel filling up with explosions and blood. In December 2023, Israel’s national cyber directorate said Iran and Hezbollah were behind an attempt to hack Ziv and cripple its operations. 

Leitersdorf and her staff believe Hezbollah is trying to destroy the hospital. “They were saying that they were watching us,” she said, referring to the missile strike in February.

The hospital is a target for Hezbollah, Leitersdorf says

KOBI WOLF

The hospital’s 2,200 staff, a mix of Jewish, Druze, Muslim, Circassian, Christian and Bedouin Israeli, just had to be resilient. Asked how the past year had affected them, Leitersdorf almost did not know where to begin. Colleagues have been kidnapped, died fighting in the war and been badly injured, she said. 

Adi Shoham, a 38-year-old clinical psychologist, was taken hostage by Hamas last October. She was kidnapped with her children Naveh, eight, and Yahel, three, while she was visiting the kibbutz in southern Israel where her parents lived. Her father was killed by Hamas, while her husband Tal is still in Gaza. She has not been able to return to work at Ziv since she was released from captivitylast November along with Naveh and Yahel.

Two weeks ago, Israel invaded southern Lebanon after a series of attacks had wiped out most of Hezbollah’s top commanders, including Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader. The number of Israeli troops on the ground is now likely to number 15,000. If they are injured in the fighting their most likely destination is Ziv Medical Centre.