Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran would “pay a heavy price” after a hospital in southern Israel was hit during an Iranian missile attack on Thursday, June 19, while his defense minister said Iran’s supreme leader would be “held accountable.” The Soroka Hospital, in the southern town of Beersheba, was left in flames following an early morning barrage of “dozens” of Iranian ballistic missiles, with impacts also reported in two Israeli towns close to the coastal hub Tel Aviv.
Speaking at the scene of the hospital, director Shlomi Kodesh said that a surgical building which had been evacuated in the past few days was hit, adding that 40 people had sustained injuries. “Several wards were completely demolished and there is extensive damage across the entire hospital with damage to buildings, structures, windows, ceilings across the medical center,” he told journalists.
Iran said it was targeting an Israeli military and intelligence base, not the health facility.
The latest escalation came on the seventh day of deadly exchanges between the two countries, with US President Donald Trump maintaining suspense about whether Washington will enter the war alongside Israel.
Khamenei ‘can no longer be allowed to exist’
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has rejected Trump’s demand for an “unconditional surrender,” despite claims from the US leader that “Iran’s got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate.”
Israel’s defense minister said Thursday that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “can no longer be allowed to exist” after the hospital was hit. “Khamenei openly declares that he wants Israel destroyed – he personally gives the order to fire on hospitals. He considers the destruction of the state of Israel to be a goal,” Israel Katz told journalists in Holon near Tel Aviv. “Such a man can no longer be allowed to exist.”
US officials said this week that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei. Trump later said there were no plans to kill him “at least not for now.”
On Thursday morning, Israel said it had carried out dozens of fresh raids on Iranian targets overnight, including the partially built Arak nuclear reactor and a nuclear facility in Natanz that has been struck previously. The Israeli military said the Arak site on the outskirts of the village of Khondab in central Iran had been hit “to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development.”
There was also a “near-total national internet blackout” in Iran on Wednesday, a London-based watchdog said, with Iran’s Fars news agency confirming heavier internet restrictions after initial curbs were imposed last week.
