Smoke rises from Soroka Medical Center following a missile strike from Iran on Israel, in Be’er Sheva, Israel, on June 19, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Israel’s main southern hospital sustained a direct hit Thursday (June 19, 2025) from an Iranian missile, with officials reporting “extensive damage” there.
The Soroka Medical Centre is the main hospital in Israel’s south.
Also read: Israel-Iran conflict updates on June 19, 2025
A spokesperson for the Soroka Medical Centre in Beer Sheba said the hospital suffered “extensive damage” in different areas and people had been wounded in the attack. The hospital has requested people not come for treatment.
The hospital has over 1,000 beds and provides services to the approximately 1 million residents of Israel’s south, according to the hospital’s website.
Details remained sparse after the attack, but firefighters said it appeared the medical building and some apartment buildings had been hit. There was no immediate word on if anyone was hurt.
The strike came as Israel struck Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, Iranian state television said Thursday (June 19, 2025).
The report said there was “no radiation danger whatsoever.” An Iranian state television reporter, on live in the nearby town of Khondab, said the facility had been evacuated and there was no damage done to civilian areas around the reactor.
Israel had warned earlier Thursday (June 19, 2025) morning it would attack the facility and urged the public to flee the area.
The Israeli military said Thursday’s (Thursday 19, 2025) round of airstrikes targeted Tehran and other areas of Iran, without elaborating. It later said Iran fired a new salvo of missiles at Israel and told the public to take shelter.
Also read: Iran’s Khamenei says ‘never surrender’; warns U.S. of ‘irreparable damage’ if it intervenes
Israel’s seventh day of airstrikes on Iran came a day after Iran’s supreme leader rejected U.S. calls for surrender and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage to them”.
Israel also lifted some restrictions on daily life, suggesting the missile threat from Iran on its territory was easing.
A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded.
In retaliation, Iran has fired some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds. Some have hit apartment buildings in central Israel, causing heavy damage.
The Arak heavy water reactor is 250 kilometres southwest of Tehran. Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon.
Published – June 19, 2025 11:55 am IST