Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the launch of a precision missile attack on an Israeli military command and intelligence center, known as IDF C4I, in the southern occupied city of Beersheba on Thursday, June 19.
The strike, which IRGC described as one of Iran’s biggest missile attacks on Israel, seems to have startled Netanyahu’s government, pushing it to produce propaganda to cover up the damage it suffered.
Israeli officials and media outlets claimed that the strike targeted Beersheba’s Soroka Hospital, labeling it a “war crime”, despite Israel’s endless record of systematic attacks on hospitals and health facilities across the West Asia region during its 20-month-long multi-front war.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi quickly debunked the accusations. “Earlier today, our powerful Armed Forces accurately eliminated an Israeli Military Command, Control & Intelligence HQ and another vital target,” Araghchi posted on X.
“The blast wave caused superficial damage to a small section of the nearby, and largely evacuated, Soroka Military Hospital. The facility is mainly used to treat Israeli soldiers engaged in the Genocide in Gaza 25 miles away, where Israel has destroyed or damaged 94% of Palestinian hospitals,” the top Iranian official added.
Netanyahu accuses Iran of committing “war crimes”
Shortly after the strike hit Israel’s military and intelligence facility, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement on X threatening Iran for allegedly attacking Soroka Hospital.
Netanyahu, who was issued arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2024, over his responsibility for war crimes committed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip, stated:
“This morning, Iran’s terrorist tyrants launched missiles at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba and at a civilian population in the center of the country.”
“We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran,” the Israeli PM and ICC fugitive warned.
Unabashed by the countless atrocities their military has committed against the peoples of the region, some Israeli ministers accused Iran of committing a “war crime”.
Speaking to foreign media outlets at a partially damaged site inside Soroka Hospital, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Sa’ar, said: “This is exactly the place where the Iranian regime targeted; a civilian hospital. This is clearly a war crime.”
For his part, Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, held Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responsible for what he also called a “war crime”.
Katz, who has been involved in killing tens of thousands of civilians across West Asia since he assumed his position last November, threatened Khamenei:
“The cowardly Iranian dictator sits deep within a fortified bunker and deliberately launches attacks toward hospitals and residential buildings in Israel.”
“These are war crimes of the worst kind, and Khamenei will be held accountable for his crimes,” Katz warned.
Iran refutes Israel’s accusations
Although Israel claimed that the attack allegedly caused major damage to the health facility, the Washington Post reported that a missile hit the surgical department, sparking fire and smashing windows across the building. The US newspaper added that 80 people were slightly injured in the incident, with no death being reported.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded to the accusations in a statement he wrote on X, explaining the circumstances of the incident. A map showing the proximity of Soroka Hospital to the targeted IDF C4I site, and a photo that demonstrates the partial damage in the hospital, were attached to the statement.
Araghchi said there was only “superficial damage to a small section of the hospital” and demonstrated its proximity to a key Israeli military site while reminding the world that there are almost no hospitals left in Gaza because of the ongoing Israeli genocide, carried out by IOF soldiers who receive treatment at the Soroka Hospital.
The Iranian FM reminded Israel that it “initiated” the war and bloodshed across the region, not Iran. He further accused “the Israeli regime” of committing war crimes by targeting hospitals and civilians, and murdering “hundreds of innocent Iranians” in “cold blood” since Israel launched its unprovoked aggression on Iran last week.
At the end of his statement, Araghchi called on Israeli settlers to pay attention to Iran’s evacuation orders, which precede the strikes, and to avoid getting close to military and intelligence sites.
Israel’s endless record of systematic attacks on hospitals
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 33 out of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza strip have been damaged in Israeli assaults since October 7, 2023.
Furthermore, targeted assassination of patients was carried out multiple times at hospital units and rooms either by drone attacks or precision missile strikes.
In March, the IOF targeted a late member of Hamas’s political bureau, Ismail Barhoum, with a missile strike while he was receiving treatment at the surgical building of Nasser hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis. A 16-year-old boy was also killed in the attack.
Two months later, Israel assassinated Palestinian journalist, Hassan Islayeh, in a drone attack on Nasser Hospital’s burns unit. At the time, Islayeh was receiving treatment for wounds he had sustained one month earlier in a previous assassination attempt near the same hospital.
A more appalling crime was committed by the IOF one day after Islayeh was murdered, when Israeli warplanes dropped nine bunker buster bombs on the European Hospital complex in Khan Younis, leaving dozens of Palestinians killed and scores of others wounded.
Israel claimed that it launched the deadly attack to target senior Hamas leader, Mohammed Sinwar, while he was holding a meeting with a number of fighters in an underground military command center in the vicinity of the hospital. Hamas, however, denied the claim.
The Israeli occupation, has for decades, used the same pretext to whitewash its war crimes and crimes against humanity, without providing concrete evidence for its allegations.
Israel’s systematic assaults on health facilities have also been launched in other parts of the region. On Monday, June 16, Israel struck the Farabi Hospital in Iran’s western city of Kermanshah, one day before the alleged attack on Israel’s Soroka Hospital took place.
Official Iranian health sources reported that Israeli fighter jets targeted other health facilities across Tehran, including two hospitals, six ambulances, and one health service center during the first week of Israel’s aggression. A female doctor, her husband, and three-year-old son were killed, and a number of other people injured in the assaults.
During its recent war with Hezbollah, Israel attacked numerous hospitals across Lebanon. Meanwhile, raids on hospitals have been carried out by the IOF and Israeli undercover security operatives in the occupied West Bank, to assassinate or arrest Palestinian patients.
