Rockets were fired against the city of Ashdod, sending its population to secure areas as Health Minister Yuli Edelstein was visiting the local Samson Assuta Medical Center on Wednesday afternoon. Fragments of a grenade were found in the hospital grounds later in the day.
“Unfortunately, it is not something unique; in all of southern and central Israel there have been many alarms in the past day,” Edelstein commented. “My hope is that our forces and especially the aviation will make the other side understand that these actions are not going to pay off.”
“We don’t know yet where this situation is going,” he also said.
Inaugurated in 2017, Assuta was built as a missile-safe structure, with the vast majority of its departments completely secured, allowing the medical personnel to continue working under attack.
As of Wednesday afternoon, some 30 patients had been treated at the center since the beginning of the conflict on Monday evening.
As Edelstein was visiting the hospital, an 11-year-old was undergoing surgery after getting hit by shrapnel. All other patients had already been discharged.
“I work in the safest place in Ashdod,” Dr. Eli Sapir, director of the Radiotherapy Institute, told The Jerusalem Post, as all of those who found themselves in the hospital’s lobby, featuring wide glass walls, ran to take refuge inside a ward as a siren blasted.
“My department is underground,” he said, before excusing himself to call his family at home and make sure that they were okay.
Soon after the minister left, barrages of rockets were fired against the city; alarms went off multiple times, staff and visitors in unprotected areas hurried to take cover in secured rooms, and phones rang with calls from family members and friends to reassure each other that everything was okay.
“Working in this situation is just crazy,” said Etty Ben Abu, a nurse working in Assuta’s maternity ward.
“There is a sense of panic. We feel it, the mothers feel it,” she added. “We also came from a night that was not easy. And many mothers have other children at home, schools are closed, and they are worried about them.”
Among the new mothers was Yifat, a 37-year-old from Gad Yavne. She gave birth to a baby girl on Tuesday. At home she has an 11-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl.
“This is not an easy experience; there is a lot of stress,” she said. “Giving birth as the sirens went off was very difficult. On the one hand, you feel you are receiving such a precious gift, the joy of life; on the other, you have to face such a difficult reality.
“We were just leaving corona behind, and being pregnant during corona was also not simple. Now we moved from fear to fear,” the mother added.
The children at home are scared, she explained, especially the younger one.
“My four-year-old is suffering from anxiety. Her mom is not there, there are the alarms, and she has a low fever; I don’t know if it is because of how she feels psychologically, or is some form of virus,” Yifat said.
“I also have the impression of having something heavy in my chest and don’t feel so well,” she also explained, as the TV near her bed was screening the news. “I gave birth with the news on. I like to know what is happening.
“I must say that in this terrible situation, the staff here has been wonderful,” Yifat concluded. “During a siren, I got anxious and I could not breathe. A nurse came and hugged me. It really helped me calm down.”