Israel is preparing for war with Hezbollah by storing blood underground amid repeated attacks from across the border with Lebanon. A subterranean car park in Haifa, just 28 miles from the border, has been converted into a five-acre hospital to cope if war breaks out.
Fifty feet underground, in one of the most secure rooms in Israel, is the country’s blood vault.
We’re told we can’t say its exact location and they won’t reveal what measures have been taken to protect it, but it is safe against missile, chemical, and cyber attacks, and in the air-conditioned room are boxes and boxes of blood of every type, hundreds of litres ready to be used in mass casualty scenarios.
War between Israel and Hezbollah is looming and so plans are being readied for another conflict.
Not far away, in part of the same subterranean complex, is a new operations room for Israel’s national ambulance service, Magen David Adom (MDA).
On the outbreak of war between the two sides, this would become the hub for all emergency calls.
MDA chief of staff Uri Shacham tells us it is “completely secure, completely connected and it allows us to keep answering calls even under missile attack”.
The worst-case scenario is a complete communications blackout. Hezbollah has the capabilities to do that, and so the emergency services are working on a plan for that eventuality – a relay system using human messengers.
Mr Shacham said: “From the IDF I would know that a missile probably hit in this or that community, so we will send motorcycles to provide first aid, collect information, and bring it back to the central dispatch.”
