By Caitlin Doornbos and Shane Galvin
Jun 18, 2025
Dozens of Iranian missiles strike major Israeli hospital and residential buildings, injuring at least 40
Iran blasted dozens of missiles at Israel Thursday morning, striking a key hospital and other civilian centers in an attack that injured at least 40 people and caused severe damage.
The Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheba, the main hospital in southern Israel with 1,000-plus beds, took a direct hit and sustained significant damage, a video taken inside the facility shows.
“Dozens of ballistic missiles were launched at Israel in the last barrage from Iran, with several hits to civilian population centres (including the Soroka hospital in southern Israel),” an Israeli military official told The Post. “IDF Homefront Command Search and Rescue teams have been dispatched to several reported impact sites.”
At least 40 people were wounded in the air strikes fired by Iran that also hit multiple residential buildings near Tel Aviv, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service.
The hospital shut down to new patients — other than those in life-threatening situations — following the strike.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to hit back even harder at Iran following the strike.
“We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran,” he vowed in an X post.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, backed up Netanyahu’s threat.
“These are war crimes of the most serious kind – and Khamenei will be held accountable for his crimes,” he tweeted.
“The Prime Minister and I have instructed 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.”
The attack came after Israel struck Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, according to an Israeli official and Iranian state television.
Israel Defense Forces had shared an evacuation warning across social media that included a satellite image of the nuclear plant, which sits in the city of Arak, in the middle of a red circle indicating a blast zone.
“Dear citizens, for your safety and well-being, we urgently request that you immediately evacuate the designated area in Tehran’s Area 18. Your presence in this area puts your life at risk,” the IDF Farsi wrote on X.
The facility was fully evacuated before the attack, according to Iran’s state-run station.
Thursday’s round of strikes also targeted several locations in Tehran and other areas across Iran.
Arak is home to heavy water nuclear reactors that produce a byproduct of plutonium, which can potentially be used in construction of nuclear weapons, The Times of Israel reported
The Arak heavy water reactor is 55 miles southwest of Tehran.EPA
The site was visited by inspectors from the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency back on May 14, just one month before that panel would vote to hold the Iran regime in non-compliance with nuclear nonproliferation agreements.
Israel’s strikes have already targeted several prominent enrichment sites throughout Iran during the seven days of airstrikes aimed at weakening the regime’s nuclear capabilities — including in cities Isfahan and Natanz.
The Jewish state has also obliterated the top Iranian generals and nuclear scientists, crippling the nation’s ability to respond militarily or diplomatically.
President Trump is currently weighing the extent to which the United States will enter into the thus far regional conflict.
“I have ideas as to what to do, but I haven’t made a final — I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due, because things change, especially with war. Things change with war. It can go from one extreme to the other,” Trump said prior to a meeting in the Situation Room on Wednesday.
Israel has specifically asked for the United States to provide a bunker-busting bomb to take out Iran’s underground nuclear-enrichment stronghold in Fordow.
At least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran since Israel began its bombing campaign last week, a Washington-based Iranian human rights group said.
In Israel, 24 people have died and hundreds have been wounded by Iranian retalitary strikes, the Associated Press reported.
We remind our readers that publication of articles on our site does not mean that we agree with what is written. Our policy is to publish anything which we consider of interest, so as to assist our readers in forming their opinions. Sometimes we even publish articles with which we totally disagree, since we believe it is important for our readers to be informed on as wide a spectrum of views as possible.
