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EXCLUSIVE Inside the underground bunkers where cancer kids are shielded from the Iranian missiles
In the middle of a warm summer night, as explosions boomed and sirens wailed overhead, a brave operation unfolded. Gravely ill children, some hooked up to life-saving machines, were rushed to underground bunkers.
The corridors of Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petah Tikvah, Israel, were brimming as nurses and doctors moved with great urgency in a race to protect their patients.
In this region, such scenes are tragically familiar. Witnessing it up close in this children's hospital, though, was both extraordinary and heart wrenching - a Herculean effort to shield the most vulnerable from the violence above.
'My daughter has leukemia and she is more afraid of the missiles than the illness,' says Taufick Zangaria, whose nine-year-old daughter, Joory, is among the patients.
The little girl, whose name is a type of flower in Arabic, is two months into her treatment which consists of chemotherapy. As if that is not enough for her to contend with, today she - alongside hundreds of others - are being hurried into shelters underneath the hospital as the latest salvo of missiles are fired from Iran.
Too many innocent children have been killed in this awful conflict. In Gaza, where Hamas blocks civilians from entering its extensive 500km underground tunnel network, child patients have nowhere to shelter.
Israel, a country always under attack by enemies that surround it, has invested billions in building the best air defence system in the world. It is this, alongside precise early warning systems, plentiful bomb shelters and organised drills, that have largely protected them until now.
But the sheer ferocity of Iran's latest bombardment is testing even these defences. Some 29 people have been killed to date.
The largest ballistic missile attack in history took place on October 1, 2024 when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard launched around 200 at Israel. Now the Iranians have doubled that over the course of just a few days. Israelis will tell you this is a whole different level of attack. For reference, Vladimir Putin fires around 50 ballistic missiles per month in Ukraine. Were it not for the Iron Dome, it does not bear thinking about.
Last week the Iranian regime fired a cluster bomb warhead missile at Soroka Medical Center in southern Israel, injuring about 80 people. Hospital staff say that it was so forceful the blast sent them flying backwards. Doctors claim many more would have suffered a worse fate had they not evacuated everyone to the bunkers in time.
Mr Zangaria says his daughter has learned how to cope with life-saving treatment in a war zone.
'My little girl is so brave, but missiles have become a way of life for children,' he laments. 'It doesn't matter if they are Muslims, Christians or Jewish kids, we are all a target. The hospital is incredible, all of us working together to keep the kids safe and cancer-free, all denominations.
'We live in the north of Israel called Tuba-Zangariyye which is a Muslim village, 40 minutes from the Syrian border, and we see rockets flying overhead from Iran. It's quite a drive from the hospital and my wife and six-year-old son stay there while Joory is undergoing treatment. Sometimes she cries for her mother and there is nothing we can do, but luckily we are in safe hands here and that reassures her mother.
'The war and my daughter's illness shows us the kindness of people of Israel from all walks of life. The hospital is outstanding the way they care for my child. Our country helps with everything, the social system is incredible, we get everything we need from the state for Joory.'
In this hospital patients would normally have 90 seconds to get to a shelter - or stairwell, as has been the case during Hamas, Houthi or Hezbollah rockets and missiles - but this time not one day has gone by without an Iranian missile.
Doctor Joanne Yacobovich, who is the head of the Hematology Oncology department, says doctors have many other worries.
'The worst fear for any doctor is that there is a direct hit on the building, especially after what happened at Soroka Medical Center... it's on everyone's mind. What happens if the building gets hit? If the building collapses how do we get patients out? What happens when there is a siren and we are in the middle of a procedure and a patient is under anesthesia and you cannot move them?
'Everyone has been caring 24 hours a day, people just came in to help move the hospital without even being called. When Soroka was hit we offered to bring patients to us. We are doing all that we can do to get the children healthy'.
'Ten minutes after the siren went off I told everyone to start moving the children,' says the CEO of the hospital Dr Efrat Bron-Harlev. 'So we started moving the entire hospital at 3am and by 8am every patient was in the bunkers.
'I never imagined it would be like this. I told everyone ten minutes after the alarm rang to start moving. We were very scared yet all the teams left their beds at home, under an attack, to come in and make it happen. All the kids on machines and in their beds were moved - no one was left behind.
'For me one of the most frightening things to move was the bone marrow department. These patients must be kept in isolation, away from germs. We have done our best to move them downstairs, but it's thanks to the teams here who made that happen.
'The only thing we had in mind was keeping the kids safe from the missiles, and they tell me they feel safe'.
Noa Asban's mum Hila said that on the night of the attack, her sister was sleeping with her daughter as she was home with her four other kids. As often is the case with families, they take it in turns to be with the child receiving treatment, which can mean a long stay. That night her mother tells me she reassured her that Noa was in the best of hands and was gently wheeled downstairs in a calm manner.
Hila says Noa, age four and who has leukaemia, is too young to understand the war - but often gives strength to her older brother, age eleven, who is scared of missiles, she tells the Mail.
'There are a lot of us downstairs but it's clean and organised. You think people would be stressed but we are not, the medical team is incredible. The girls that volunteer to be with kids as their national service are angels... they play with the kids and help the families.'
The oncology ward bunker is quite stuffy with many patients in a large room separated by curtains. Yet the staff are full of smiles and a clown is walking around the wards.
Hila says: 'Bat Sheruts' young girls that choose to volunteer instead of serving in the mandatory army adorn the corridors with arts and crafts for the kids. If it wasn't for the windowless environment one may forget the country was at war.'
'The day the doctors told me Joory had leukaemia I cried my heart out,' says Mr Zangaria. 'She's a miracle girl, she came after miscarriages and difficulties. She's already proven herself, the doctors are all crazy about her. I know she will come out of this stronger.'
After 12 days of conflict a ceasefire has been agreed and the children made their way back up again this morning in the same manner they went below ground. As they look forward to the future and some kind of normality, they're hoping that the ceasefire holds.
