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newsMar 26, 202615:42

Israel's Largest Hospital Treating Patients Underground Amid Missile Attacks

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Amidst the ongoing conflict with Iran entering its fourth week, the Sheba Medical Center, the largest hospital in Israel and the Middle East, is using an underground facility to ensure continuity of care, despite the threat of missile attacks. At the beginning of the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, the hospital relocated more than a thousand patients underground in less than 48 hours. The medical center continues to operate almost completely out of their underground facility as the threat of missile attacks continues. FOX’s Jonathan Savage speaks with Dr. Jordanna Koppel, a senior pediatrician at the Sheba Medical Center, who shares what emergency medical care looks like on the front lines of this conflict, and how it feels to be administering care even as bombs continue to drop. Click Here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Israel's Largest Hospital Treating Patients Underground Amid Missile Attacks

The Fox News Rundown

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The Fox News RundownIsrael's Largest Hospital Treating Patients Underground Amid Missile Attacks. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.

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I'm Steve Ducey. I'm Sandra Smith. I'm Jimmy Fala, and this is the Fox News rundown. Thursday, March 26, 2026, I'm Jonathan Savage under fire, under pressure, and under ground. It looks from afar like a field hospital, but it is most certainly not. This is a fully functional hospital, which is subterranean, which is really quite incredible. This is the Fox News rundown, Operation Epic Fury. America leads the world in medicine development. It matters. We get new medicines first, nearly three years faster. Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home, and not relying on other countries keeps us safe. But China is racing to overtake us. Will we let them, or will we choose to stay ahead? When America leads, America cures. Let's tell Washington to keep us in the lead.

Learn how at AmericaCures.com, paid for by Farma. Israel has come under daily missile and drone fire from Iran since the military operation began almost four weeks ago. That's meant Israeli casualties, more than 5,000 injured, and at least 23 civilian deaths. Just today, Iranian cluster munitions hit an apartment building in Tel Aviv. Police spokesman, Dean Ellsden. These cluster missiles have one purpose and one purpose only, to maximize civilian casualties. It appears a cluster munition landed right in the living room of this family's home. Now, our forces immediately arrived here to medically evacuate them from the scene. This is just one of a few scenes here in Tel Aviv where we have fragments, debris, and munitions that landed in different areas. Treating casualties in a city under attack is far from easy. Israel Sheba Medical Center moved more than 1,000 patients underground in less than 48 hours. A massive, logistical, and human challenge. We are one of the largest hospitals in Israel and the Middle East.

We have over 3,000 nurses and over 1,700 doctors. We are an enormous campus and we are a tertiary care hospital with Level 1 trauma center. We're speaking with Dr. Yordana Kapil, an attending physician in the pediatric emergency department. That means, of course, that you will be receiving people who suffer injuries on a daily basis, but at the moment with a conflict going on, how is that changing, the kind of injuries you're seeing or the frequency? At this point, we have been receiving war casualties, and especially in pediatrics, this is something that we're not exposed to. We are prepared for mass casualty, and especially on October 7th, I would say that that was our main mass casualty incident that we've had in the past couple of years. We are fully prepared to receive patients in that capacity.

And in the meantime, we've been receiving patients after they've suffered from blast injuries from various places around the country. So while you're receiving patients with blast injuries and so forth, you're doing so while Israel is under fire. So how is that changing the way that you work? So the entire hospital has mobilized itself to an underground area, and it looks from afar like a field hospital, but it is most certainly not. This is a fully functional hospital, which is subterranean, which is really quite incredible. The entire hospital has mobilized itself to be underground and to function in full capacity. Does that change your experience as a doctor, and how does it change the experience for the patients? It definitely changes my experience as a doctor, and it definitely had an effect on the patient, so I would like to speak about my patients personally. We're speaking about pediatric patients,

and pediatric patients that are living through a war, and they're now coming to a subterranean part of the hospital, which can definitely be more intimidating. There's no natural light. We have tried to do our best with this situation. We have medical clowns, we have toys, we have snacks, we have areas for new mothers who are nursing or pumping, a whole area just for newborn infants, just to give a sense of normalcy to the people coming to make it as comfortable as possible, despite the circumstances. Are you having to work differently yourself because you are underground? And because of the fact that there could be casualties coming in at any time, suffering from blast injuries? Yes, of course. Just to give a bit of context, our emergency department in Israel runs like an ICU, meaning that I could potentially take call from home in the midnight hours. And at this point, we have a senior physician who sleeps in the hospital every single evening,

in the event, also for mass casualty, but also in case that there is a misalong and that there's just a regular not related to war resuscitation going on so that a physician can get their senior physician can get on site quickly and safely. So it's definitely affected our schedule. Are you able to do this for an extended period of time without compromising quality of care? At this point, I haven't seen any compromise in quality of care, which is really incredible. The hospital functions at full capacity. The hospital is able to continue all of its services, which includes surgery, MRI. We perform CTs underground. It only occurred to me a week ago when I sedated an infant at the CT. How did they build this in a parking lot? And so quickly, it's really quite extraordinary how we function at full capacity with all the ways that a tertiary care hospital functions, including pediatric ICU, neonatal,

cardiac surgery, maternity, everything as if it would function above ground, just functions below ground. No doubt there's an enormous amount of human input into making this work, but do you have advanced technological input, which is helping you as well at this point? Absolutely. We have a few things in place. Number one, we have just started, especially in pediatrics, I can speak for that home care. For patients who don't have to be admitted, but do need or IV access or they do need a bit more oversight in their care. And we have had our first patient this week who is able to be admitted at home for IV antibiotics. In addition to that, we also have on the maternity side patients who are high-risk, obiic patients, are followed and have fetal monitoring three times a day and have daily calls by midwives, which is really quite incredible. In addition to that,

we have an emergency room, a project which has been started by Dr. Jessica Mosquitz. She is having the first virtual emergency department intake, which means that patients can give their information from home and be guided to or told by the physician to stay at home. And the second to get to the hospital, all of their labs has been ordered. All of their imaging has been ordered, which really streamlines their care, which is quite incredible. We've been speaking with Dr. Yordina Kopol, an attending physician in the pediatric emergency department at the Shiba Medical Center in Israel. More after this. Exema is unpredictable, but you can blare less with ebglyce, a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four and ten people taking ebglyce achieved itch relief and glare are almost glare skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more glare at one year with monthly dosing. Ebglyce, Libri Kizumap, LBKZ, a 250mg per 2mL injection is a

prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kg with moderate to severe eczema. Also called a topic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin, or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. Ebglyce can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to ebglyce. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebglyce. Before starting ebglyce, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask a doctor about ebglyce and visit ebglyce.lily.com or call 1-800-LilyRx or 1-800-545-5979. Do you think that that means that you'll be able to use these lessons and make care even better at a time when the risk and the level of conflict isn't quite so heightened? Absolutely. They're definitely a proportion of children who don't have to be admitted and in a whole some way. It is so much better for them to stay at home. And those are services that we have not offered to them in the past, but parents are desperate

for it. And I think it's a really wonderful initiative during this time of conflict that we'll be able to offer them in the future. Another thing that we've started subterranean is using AI to synthesize the patient histories from the medical chart and to listen, have ambient listening so that we can take what the patients say, what's in their medical chart and synthesize it, so that we're able to make medical notes quickly without much typing, which really streamlines their care and also allows the doctors to spend more time on the medicine and less time on the bureaucracy. It really just strikes me that you are working with injured children in a time of war. How do the children through all this? They might not know anything different in terms of their hospital experience, but it must be emotionally traumatic for them especially. This is a very difficult time. We are a war within a war and that certainly

poses many issues for the children coming and it particularly took care of a child this past week who suffered from blast injuries and was separated by helicopter, by front line command and brought to us while the rest of his family was hospitalized elsewhere and the emotional trauma being separated from your family after you've experienced that kind of trauma, physical trauma is definitely difficult. We see this from that level of severity of injury to just children running for safety and falling and breaking their arm or having a laceration on their head that needs to be repaired. Any of these things are just difficult to accommodate and we do our best, we actually have started using virtual reality on the children, subterranean, using medical

clowns, anything to use as a distraction from where we're providing care, which is the best we could provide, just not a very friendly space for a child during this time. Of course, and of course for you, a lot of people when things aren't safe, maybe they have the option to work remotely, not travel, not go out so much, but you have no choice, you have to go there, you have to go to work at a time when missiles and drones could be flying in. How are you bearing up? I absolutely have no choice. It is true. There's definitely a sense of anxiety getting to and from the hospital and this mental mapping of where can I stop my car on the way and I've definitely met some physicians who come and lend a hand and then they're nervous about the drive home, especially at night and it's just incredible to just think about will I make it? Will I not? Where can I stop halfway

through? But I have to say that everybody is pulling their weight and I work now in the pediatric emergency department, which is adjacent to the adult emergency, orthopedics, ENT, all the emergency departments have been put together and really it's just wonderful to be with colleagues during this time and to see that everybody's shown up through bravery or through loyalty to the job, to the people, to just be there for when we're needed. It's really just incredible. Well, I'm sure your work and that of your colleagues is hugely appreciated. We certainly wish you the very best. Stay safe. Dr. Jordina Coppel, thank you for speaking to the Fox News Rundown. Thank you so much for having me. You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown and now stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at FoxNewsPodcasts.com. Listen, add free on Fox News Podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts and prime members can listen to the show add free on Amazon Music and for up to the minute news,

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