The Ziv hospital in northern Israel is on high alert. Non-urgent operations are on hold, staff have been asked to consider donating blood when needed, and all patients – including newborns in the maternity unit – have been moved underground.
The expectation here is clear: If Israel ends up sending more troops to southern Lebanon, it could get bloody.
“We have been in a war situation for the past year, but after the army entered into Lebanon, our services and all of the staff are ready for, unfortunately, the next wave of casualties,” the hospital’s director, Salman Zarka, told CNN.
Ziv Medical Center is the only hospital in the area and the closest to Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria, as well as the occupied Golan Heights. The hospital in Safed has been receiving people injured in cross-border fire for months, including children hurt in the deadly attack on Majdal Shams in July.