Israeli hospital hit by Iranian missile strike

The conflict began on 13 June, when Israel launched attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and killed several top generals and nuclear scientists.

Israel’s deputy foreign affairs minister said Iran’s hit on the Soroka hospital was “deliberate” and “criminal”.

In a post on X, Sharren Haskel said the site that was the main medical centre for Israel’s entire Negev region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would “exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran”.

While Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz told reporters: “[Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei openly declares that he wants Israel destroyed – he personally gives the order to fire on hospitals.”

BBC correspondents in the area described the scale of the damage as extensive, with debris and plumes of smoke floating through the air long after the blast.

Several wards were completely destroyed as fire spread through one of the buildings, causing windows to smash and ceilings to collapse, hospital authorities said.

Around 200 patients will be transferred to other hospitals centres, Prof Shlomi Codish, chief executive of the Soroka said.

“At the moment we don’t know if buildings or other wards might collapse,” he added.

On Thursday morning, an Iranian ballistic missile struck the business district of Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv – causing a large sheet of glass to fall several floors from a skyscraper and part of an electrical pylon to crash to the ground.

About 20 people are believed to have been injured by the blast in the area, authorities have said.