Haifa Readies World’s Largest Underground Hospital

August 21, 2024

by: Etgar Lefkovitz ~ JNS

Wednesday, 21 August 2024 | In Haifa, rows of hospital beds with adjacent oxygen units line an underground parking lot. Four operating rooms, a maternity ward and a dialysis center are among the facilities that Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus has set up three levels down in its parking garage.

The largest hospital in northern Israel has worked to create the largest underground hospital in the world and is now gearing up for what could be an all-out war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The three-floor, [US] $140-million Fortified Underground Emergency Hospital was constructed following the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when the Iranian terrorist proxy fired about 70 missiles on this northern port city over a month, shaking the hospital in an era before the Iron Dome air defense system was in place.

“We made a commitment that this scenario cannot happen again,” said the hospital director, Professor Michael Halberthal, during a tour of the facility on Sunday.

The 2,000-plus bed subterranean emergency hospital, which has been ready if unused over the last decade, is essentially a 1,500-car garage that has been seamlessly converted into a fortified hospital for warfare and that can be put into full use within eight hours.

‘We wanted peace of mind’

Nearly two decades after the last major war with Hezbollah, security threats have only grown from the Shiite terrorist group, which has been raining down missiles on Israel almost daily since the October 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. Its members are better trained and more heavily armed, with a missile stockpile experts estimate at 150,000 projectiles capable of striking virtually the entire country.

Halberthal explained that the Israeli military assessment for an all-out war describes Hezbollah firing a missile at Haifa every four minutes for 60 days, leading to thousands of casualties.

“We wanted peace of mind so we can continue to work and to reduce exposure time if there is a sudden missile attack on northern Israel,” said the hospital director.

Based on a model in Singapore, the facility received 30% of its funding from the state, with the remainder financed by Jewish and Christian philanthropists, including the late Israeli shipping magnate Sammy Ofer (the hospital is named after him) and charities.

During the coronavirus pandemic, it was converted into the largest COVID-19 facility in Israel.

With tensions with Hezbollah running high—Israel [having] killed Fu’ad Shukr, a top Hezbollah leader in Beirut, on July 30, after a terrorist rocket killed 12 Israeli children playing soccer in a Druze village in the Golan Heights—the underground hospital is again primed for use.

One of its three 20,000-square meter (5-acre) floors has been cleared of cars these last 10 months and put on standby, even as above ground the hospital has been treating hundreds of casualties from the war, including the kids wounded in the Golan attack.

Restrooms, showers and even a daycare center area can fit 8,000 people at full capacity, with enough electricity, water, oxygen, food and gas to make it self-sufficient for several days of warfare, said Halberthal.

A fortified hospital underground command center replete with smart-screen TVs and a state-of-the-art data computer system was donated for a medical center where nearly one-third of its staff are non-Jews.

‘We are prepared’

“There is no panic, but citizens are concerned,” said Tal Siboni, head of the Haifa Municipality’s emergency call center, which since October 7 has been operating in an underground bunker. “The phones are not ringing off the hook, but we are prepared.”

This city of 300,000 residents—12% of whom are Arabs—is, like many other Israeli communities these last 10 months, on edge.

About 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes in northern Israel following the attacks from Lebanon, with some moving to Haifa.

Veteran Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav has said that in a full-scale war, Hezbollah could fire as many as 4,000 projectiles a day at northern Israel.

“I am being accused of being too pessimistic but it’s better to be too pessimistic,” he said on Monday, confirming his remarks, which raised eyebrows and were reported in the Arab world, even as he voiced the hope that an agreement could be reached to avert an all-out war.

“We are the target,” the mayor said. “[Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah says it openly.”

In the meantime, the city has reduced the levels of hazardous materials at its petrochemical industries over the last two weeks as a safety measure in keeping with military instructions, said Yair Zilberman, the city’s director of emergency preparedness and security.

“There are diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the conflict but we are readying for anything and everything,” said IDF foreign press spokesman major David Avraham at a briefing in Haifa overlooking the city’s ports.

Back at the hospital, a steady stream of patients comes and goes through the main entrance on a warm and sun-swept summer day, seemingly oblivious to the preparations underway three levels down.

“We have to be optimistic,” Halberthal said. “Somewhere along the line, there has to be an end to this.”

Posted on August 21, 2024

Source: (This article was originally published by the Jewish News Syndicate on August 20, 2024. Time-related language has been modified to reflect our republication today. See original article at this link.)

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Rambam Health Care Campus/jns.org