Carrie Keller-Lynn
Above ground, Rambam Health Care Campus treats the wounded from the fight in Gaza. Below ground, northern Israel’s leading hospital is preparing for what could be the country’s next war—an all-out conflict with Hezbollah.
Four operating rooms, a maternity ward and a dialysis center are among the facilities the hospital has set up three levels down in its underground parking garage, part of its plan to keep functioning if the daily tit for tat exchange of fire between Israel and the U.S.-designated terror group across the border with Lebanon escalates.
Hospital beds are set up next to oxygen and suction lines embedded within the parking lot’s walls, medication is piled on rollable shelves, and ventilation ducts have been strung from the ceiling. Doctors practice evacuating their wards to the parking garage, primed to transfer operations underground within eight hours and get ready for new patients.
“We expect to have thousands of casualties over here,” said Dr. Michael Halberthal, the hospital’s director. “This is what we’re ready for.”
Healthcare centers, emergency services and residents across Israel are preparing for a war that could far outstrip the damage of the conflict with Hamas. Hezbollah is better trained and more heavily armed, with a missile stockpile experts estimate at 150,000 projectiles capable of pinning down the entire country.
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