The entrance hall to the Galilee Medical Center in northern Israel is mostly empty and quiet. Roaring warplanes and the intermittent thunder of artillery have replaced the sounds of doctors, orderlies and patients at this major hospital closest to the border with Lebanon. Nearly all of the hospital’s staff members and patients have gone underground. Getting to the hospital’s nerve center these days involves navigating past 15-foot concrete barricades and multiple blast doors, then descending several floors into a labyrinthine subterranean complex. That is where thousands of patients and hospital workers have been for the past six months as strikes have intensified between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon, just six miles to the north.

---

Organizations: Galilee Medical Locations: Galilee, Israel, Lebanon