Counting the Miracles in Be’er Sheva After Iran Targets Soroka Hospital

BE’ER SHEVA, Israel—On a typical day, Rabbi Yossi Litzman, goes from room to room at Soroka Medical Center to speak with patients. He asks how they’re doing, lends a listening ear, and shares words of comfort and support. He also offers to help the men put on tefillin, and his wife, Shoshi, helps the women light Shabbat candles on Fridays.

The Litzmans direct Chabad-Lubavitch at Soroka Hospital in the desert city of Be’er Sheva. It’s a major hospital in Israel, the only large one in Israel’s entire southern half, and serves a population of about 1 million people. The Litzmans, together with fellow Chabad of Soroka emissaries Rabbi Shmulik and Nechama Friman, are constantly busy bringing love and care to those who need it most.

This morning, when Rabbi Litzman arrived at the hospital, everything was different. Soroka had suffered a direct hit from an Iranian ballistic missile. Patients flocked to the rabbi, eager to share their miraculous stories, don tefillin, or do another mitzvah.

Alerts of ballistic missiles heading towards Be’er Sheva first sounded at 7:12 a.m., Thursday morning.

“We don’t have a bomb shelter in our home,” explains Shoshi Litzman. “So we had to get all of our children out of the house and across the street to the public bomb shelter fast. We arrived right in time to hear the very loud explosion. We knew that something right nearby was hit.”

It was Soroka, just a few hundred feet away. As soon as the Home Front Command notice was given that it was safe to leave shelter, Rabbi Litzman rushed over.

At first glance, the outlook was bleak. Shrapnel was everywhere, and an entire building appeared to be destroyed. Black smoke rose into the sky. The missile had impacted the surgical building, where patients in recovery were mostly immobile, incapable of getting up on their own to evacuate for missile alerts. There weren’t enough staff to bring them all to safety, either.

But upon further investigation, he learned that “The hospital had been evacuating the patients in the older buildings, ward by ward. Some were moved to more secure buildings, and others were discharged. The top floors of this building were just evacuated yesterday. If the missile had hit even ten hours earlier, we could have had a massive casualty event. It would have been unimaginable horror.”

The rabbi shuddered before continuing, “And if it landed just a few feet in the other direction, it would have hit a building where new mothers are in labor, and where most didn’t manage to reach a shelter in time.”

"If the missile had hit even ten hours earlier, we could have had a massive casualty event. It would have been unimaginable horror."

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‘My Head was Spared’

At the hospital grounds, Rabbi Litzman quickly faced a line of medical patients and staff who wanted to give thanks to G‑d. “They all spoke of open miracles. Every single person had a story—how they managed to get to shelter just in time, or how their room got sprayed with shrapnel, but they were left unharmed. They felt G‑d with them,” the rabbi reports.

While the area of the main impact was empty, the damage is widespread, and most patients have been transferred to a different hospital. The buildings’ foundations are also damaged, and initially there were concerns of hazardous materials leaking, though emergency services later determined that there was no danger.

Despite the destruction and initial shock, the mood today has been one of awe.

“A week ago, I met Oren, a new patient at the hospital,” says Litzman. “We spoke for a while, and then I asked him if he wanted to put on tefillin and pray. He said he wasn’t interested—it’s something he’s not done since his bar mitzvah. He later changed his mind, and I’ve helped him do it again every day this week.”

Oren kept a poker face, and Litzman wasn’t sure whether he was agreeing to the tefillin simply as a favor to the rabbi or whether it meant something higher to him. Today he found out.

“He said to me, “Rabbi, I put the tefillin on my head every day, and that’s why today my head was spared!’” recounts Litzman.

Oren told the rabbi that he had been stuck in his bed, unable to go to the bomb shelter on his own. When the missile impacted, the window in his room popped off the wall—but miraculously didn’t shatter.

“The glass should have catapulted into my head,” Oren exclaimed. “The merit of the tefillin protected me!”

Laying tefillin outside Soroka Medical Center after the attack.

Another patient told Rabbi Litzman that an iron door was blown off into the room where he and others were sheltering, but somehow none of them were hurt. Yet another related how there was no shelter in her area, so she and other patients crowded in a corridor, and then watched as the room they were in moments earlier was completely destroyed.

Out of the thousands at the site, five people sustained light injuries from the attack.

“From morning until night, I listened to each person share their own miracle story, and helped them give thanks to G‑d,” says Litzman. “The faith amongst everyone I spoke to was powerful—a true testament to our people.”

Be’er Sheva’s mayor, Ruvik Danilovich, arrived at the scene and captured the spirit of the Jewish people in his words, “We are at war with a country that wants to destroy us. We have prepared in advance for every scenario—and we will defeat our enemies! They will not overwhelm us. We have already gone through many rounds [of war] and difficult military campaigns. This is a war for the very existence of the Jewish people in our land. In the name of G‑d, we will do it, we will succeed and we will win!”

Rabbi Litzman agrees, “The Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory] told us over and over again—this is the Land upon which G‑d places His eyes ‘from the beginning of the year to to the end of the year.’ Day and night, with no rest. We’ve grown used to the miracles here. We know that we are alive today because G‑d is closely guarding us, and we know that we will thrive tomorrow, because He is leading us into miraculous times.”

Soroka Medical Center is the largest hospital in Israel's south.

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