The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, with its cheerful canary yellow walls and violet ceiling lamps, is on the highest floor of the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Mother and Child Center in Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem. The tiniest and sickest newborns, some weighing no more than a pound, spend their first weeks of life in the unit, with each infant born prematurely given a private room.

In room No. 5, a squeak escapes from Baby B (her name as well as other patients in the article have been omitted for their privacy). A nurse specialist and a neonatologist respond to the complaint to find that the pacifier has slipped from Baby B’s lips. Both nurse and doctor pause for a moment to admire the infant, with her dark hair and her perfect miniature features.

Though the atmosphere in the NICU is today calm and cheerful, Baby B’s stay at Ein Kerem has been far from uneventful. She and her twin sister, Baby A, were born on the night that 200 Israeli fighter jets were en route to Iran, 1,200 miles away, in a preemptive attack dubbed Operation Rising Lion to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The twins’ young parents—a haredi couple welcoming their first children—could not have imagined that one of their daughters would be born with a life-threatening condition that required emergency surgery the very next morning. Nor could they have considered that after surgery, their daughter would need to be carefully transferred 11 floors down to a special underground hospital at Ein Kerem, where she would stay for almost two weeks, part of an hours-long, meticulously planned operation to move patients to safety at both of Hadassah’s two campuses.

On June 13, 2025, at 3 a.m. Israel time, personal cellphones throughout Israel emitted a jarring, high-pitched alarm. A text message read: Imminent missile attacks are expected. Get ready to enter your safe rooms and shelters!

At Hadassah’s Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus hospitals, staff members soon arrived from their homes to transfer vulnerable patients to the safest spaces on the campuses in case an Iranian ballistic missile targeted either campus. On the top floor of the Bloomberg Mother and Child Center, infants in the neonatal unit were judged vulnerable in every sense.

Hours later, by the time the oscillating sirens signaled the imminent arrival of the first lethal missiles, the babies, including Baby A and Baby B, were safely below ground.

“There was a lot of talk of a possible confrontation with Iran, but none of us knew when or who would attack first,” recalled Dr. Smadar Eventov-Friedman, head of the Neonatology Division. “We prepared at many meetings with the administration, refining our strategies and coming up with solutions to the thorniest problems. As you can imagine, the logistics are complicated in moving the newborns.”

The move required a team of doctors, nurses, engineers, technicians and others to know exactly what had to be done and in what order. Each baby had a lot of portable equipment, including life-support, breathing and heart machines, monitors, intravenous fluid pumps, medications and computers. “At least four experts are necessary to accompany each incubator,” said Dr. Eventov-Friedman.

At Hadassah Ein Kerem, Baby A had been delivered at 5 pounds and was able to go home with her parents after a brief stay in the neonatal unit. Her sister, Baby B, weighed under 4 pounds, and the neonatologist present at the birth immediately noticed a swallowing problem. There was an imperfection in her esophagus that required urgent surgery, intensive care and a longer stay at Hadassah.

Fortunately, the operating theaters in Ein Kerem’s Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower were built deep underground as a safety precaution. After successful surgery, in her incubator, Baby B joined her sister and the other tiny sabras of all ethnicities in the temporary neonatal unit.

“One day,” said Dr. Eventov-Friedman, “her mom will tell her daughters about the dramatic and potentially perilous circumstances of their birth.”

The medical team made sure the parents were also tended to with special care. “We had the social work staff there for the parents,” she added. “You can imagine that the stress level is very high, and especially for these new parents with twins. We see ourselves as  a family care center in all circumstances.”

Fifteen miles across town at Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus, pediatric and adult patients had also been moved to a safer area.

In the two weeks after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, an underground hospital was built and equipped for emergencies in the incomplete parking lot of the Gandel Rehabilitation Center at Mount Scopus, then still under-construction. For 20 months, the underground hospital remained pristine, nicknamed the “God Forbid Hospital”—ready if “God forbid” rockets hit Jerusalem or if other Israeli hospitals were struck and needed to transfer patients to HMO.

“Before the first salvo of missiles from Iran were launched on June 13,  we activated the underground emergency hospital,” said HMO Director-General Dr. Yoram Weiss. “By noon it was fully functioning with five departments, including intensive care and dialysis.”

Mount Scopus patients in vulnerable buildings were moved into the readied emergency location, and patient care continued without disturbance throughout the many red alerts during Operation Rising Lion.

When the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba suffered a direct missile hit on June 19, patients were transferred to both Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus for surgery and medical care. The 140-bed “God Forbid Hospital” at Mount Scopus was re-nicknamed “the Thank God Hospital.”

Returning to their regular departments and wards was quicker than moving into emergency areas. Within three hours of the announcement of the ceasefire on June 24, the neonatal patients—including Baby B—were back in their high-tech rooms, and the children and adults were on their way back to their regular wards. The underground hospitals today are blessedly empty.

“As we see that hospitals and research institutions were targeted, the underground operating rooms at Ein Kerem and the underground emergency hospital at Mount Scopus are excellent examples of what we can do with prudent planning ahead,” Dr. Weiss said. “We’re very grateful for the support we receive from HWZOA members and international supporters. Our Mount Scopus campus opened in 1939 and Ein Kerem in 1962, so there are areas that need safeguarding against modern warfare. We’re not going to turn our hospital into a fortress, but there is life-saving equipment that can’t be moved and rooms that need reinforcement.

“Together,” he added, “we need to think now how to make sure our campus is fully protected in the future.”

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Barbara Sofer, an award-winning journalist and author, is Israel director of public relations for Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America.