Israel's First Rocket-Proof Children's Hospital

[vminfla]

The Center for Children's Health, to be part of the Ziv Medical Center (Rebecca Sieff Hospital) in Tzfat (Safed), will be tailor-made to the specifications of the Home Front Command. A new medical school has just opened up right next door, linked to Bar Ilan University.

During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the hospital was repeatedly targeted in Katyusha rocket attacks by the Lebanon-based Hizbullah terrorist organization. One missile scored a direct hit on the hospital which caused damage to the infrastructure. That attack also injured five patients, two doctors and two other members of the staff.

More than 1,500 casualties were treated during the war, including 288 IDF soldiers and 125 civilians who required hospitalization.

As a result, the new facility will be built in accordance with Home Front Command-standard reinforced concrete, with the north wall, facing Lebanon, to be 60 centimeters thick (23.6 inches).

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/149149

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It is a shame that such fortification is necessary, but it is also a demonstrative tale on resilience of the human spirit and the will to succeed. Some may believe that there is no hope and blame others, others look for solutions to even the most dire of problems.