Name: Iran and Israel launch further strikes as Israeli hospital is damaged | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-06-19T16:54:00.000Z
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The conflict between Israel and Iran is now in its seventh day, with both sides continuing missile strikes.

Among the buildings damaged in Israel was a hospital in the southern city of Beersheba.

Past perfect

Benjamin Netanyahu said terrorist tyrants had launched missiles at the hospital.

He said Israel would exact the full price from Iran for the attack.

Iran says its target was a nearby military site and that the blast wave damaged the hospital.

But Israeli media says there is no nearby military facility.

Several other missiles managed to penetrate Israel's defence system.

A missile also landed between buildings in Holon.

Among the people injured in Israel, there's a man in his 80s and two women in their 70s, who were all said to be in a serious condition.

The Israel Defence Force say they struck more than 20 military targets in Tehran yesterday.

Iranian media says Israel has struck an area near the heavy water research reactor in Hondab, which is part of Iran's nuclear programme.

The International Nuclear Watchdog says it was not operational and contained no nuclear material.

It's understood around 60 Israeli warplanes targeted Iran overnight.

There have been very few images coming out of Iran of damage there, but these pictures were released today, showing the aftermath of Tuesday's attack on a state media building.

According to Iranian media, the deputy foreign minister said if the US wants to actively intervene in support of Israel, Iran will have no other option but to use its tools to teach aggressors a lesson and defend itself.

Meanwhile, another part of this very complex picture in the United States, President Trump is due to receive an intelligence briefing later today, with reports suggesting he still hasn't decided whether he'll authorise US involvement in action by Israel against Iran.

Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson sent this report from outside the damaged hospital in Beersheba.

There was still smoke billowing from this building when we arrived here this morning.

Several hours after the attack, and emergency teams are still evacuating patients, still assessing the damage inside the building.

When we came in this morning, we passed rows of vehicles full of medical personnel that had been sent to help in this attack, because the fear was that it might have been much worse than it was.

In the event, most of the patients in the areas hit by this strike had recently been moved to the hospital's underground medical shelters.

Even so, this strike, coming in response to Donald Trump's demand that Iran unconditionally surrender, is a reminder that both sides still have the power to escalate this conflict by using different weapons and by choosing different targets.

Lucy Williamson, BBC News, outside Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.

Let's speak now to our correspondent Dan Johnson in Jerusalem.

Dan, that incident and others in Israel illustrating that Israel's defences are not blocking all of the missiles coming in from Iran.

What is the government saying about what's next with their plan?

Israel is promising retaliation for this attack.

It accuses Iran of war crimes in targeting a civilian facility, that hospital.

The Iranians have indicated that they were actually aiming at some sort of military intelligence or technical facility that was apparently nearby to the hospital.

But the Israelis are already enacting their revenge.

They are giving a military briefing at the moment.

Their spokesman says that there are Israeli jets in the air aiming for targets now in Iran.

The defence minister has promised that the Ayatollah of Iran will feel the impact of the attacks on Israel this morning.

He said he will be held to account and that they will target the Iranian power network as well as the sites that they believe are involved in the Iranian nuclear programme.

So we're seeing a further ramping up of the violence and the rhetoric.

The hope had been that we might be moving towards a calmer period and perhaps possible peace talks.

But over last night there was a repeated wave of missile attacks from Iran into Israel.

And that has been a more intense barrage than had been seen over the last few nights.

Perhaps the most intense barrage of the entire week of this conflict.

We know that over the past seven days the latest Israeli figures are that 24 people in Israel have lost their lives.

More than 20,000 buildings or vehicles have been damaged.

It's difficult to get those sorts of figures from Iran because we're not allowed to report there.

But our best understanding is that at least 224 people have been killed there over the past week.

And Israel is promising more action in retaliation which puts further lives at risk.

Meanwhile all eyes on Donald Trump to see what his next move is and whether that manages to do something to escalate or de-escalate this conflict.

And let's pick up on that thought with our chief international correspondent Lise Doucette who joins me in the studio.

So Lise it does seem that we are poised at a very delicate moment.

We don't know yet whether President Trump is going to decide to authorize U.S. involvement in Israel's attacks on Iran.

Or is there possibly still a hope and a place for diplomacy and for a resolution?

It really is a knife edge moment or a bomb edge moment.

President Trump boasts that he makes the decision at the last second.

We understand from American media that he has approved a U.S. military plan.

But as you've been reporting he will have an intelligence briefing.

And we will wait and see what he decides once he sees that.

But he still keeps saying there is a chance for negotiations.

If Iran wants to negotiate he says he makes it sound as though the ball is in Iran's camp.

And there's a European initiative isn't there to try to reach a diplomatic solution.

Tell us more about that and the prospects for that Lise.

There was a view in Israel that President Trump would make a decision this week.

They had talked earlier in the week 24-48 hours.

There will be a meeting in Geneva involving the Foreign Minister of Iran, Abbas Araqchi, as well as his British, German and French counterparts, as well as the EU Foreign Policy Chief.

There's a lot of interest in that meeting.

It seems as though it will be held to try to make it clear to Iran that their nuclear program can only be used for civilian purposes.

So we'll have to wait and see whether that can be a last minute rescue of this moment.

As you know there's been calls for a de-escalation in capitals around the world, including here in London.

A lot of concern in the region that this could escalate even further and have catastrophic consequences, most of all for Iran and Israel because Iran has made it clear that all options are on the table for Iran, should the United States join this fight in using its military might.