As hundreds of wounded poured into Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva on Oct. 7, 2023, doctors, nurses and other medical personnel fought to save lives as the Hamas massacre unfolded across southern Israel.
Now, previously unreleased security-camera footage from inside the Clalit health fund hospital provides a stark view of what those teams faced during the first hours of the war.
The footage is featured in “The Shift” (“HaMishmeret”), a new documentary aired as a special episode of state broadcaster Kan 11’s investigative program “Zman Emet” (“Real Time”).
The images from Soroka’s security cameras show corridors, entrances, emergency department gates and hospital grounds as wave after wave of casualties arrived.
In the first 24 hours of the war, Soroka, the major trauma center serving southern Israel, treated 674 wounded, even as members of its staff worried about their own families amid the terrorist assault taking place nearby.
The documentary, presented by TV journalists Chen Liberman and Roni Singer, combines the new footage with firsthand testimony and other documentation to reconstruct the events of that day.
While acknowledging that some scenes are harrowing to watch, Singer expressed disbelief after TikTok removed a promotional clip featuring the Soroka security-camera footage, classifying it as “misleading information.” Singer said she could not understand the decision, noting that the footage documented real events at the hospital in real time.
“The moments captured by Soroka Hospital’s cameras on Oct. 7, 2023, are inconceivable even when viewed from a distance of three years,” Singer said, describing the film as documenting “the wounded, their families and, above all, a medical team that did the unimaginable.”
‘A historical document’
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and his wife, Michal, hosted a special screening of selections from the documentary at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on Sunday evening.
“It is a historical document,” Herzog said. “The film captures the scale of the trauma and the magnitude of the heroism on Oct. 7.”
“No one from the outside will ever be able to truly understand how medical teams are able to function this way in order to save lives,” he added.
Herzog praised the Soroka staff for their response under extraordinary circumstances.
“You will be remembered for generations to come for the way you met the challenges presented to you and for the incredible and difficult work of saving lives,” he said.
‘What made all the difference was the people’
For Dr. Ori Galante, director of Soroka’s Internal Medicine Intensive Care Unit and one of the physicians featured prominently in the documentary, the film serves both as a record of the Hamas attack and a tribute to those who responded.
“It is important for preserving the truth about the atrocities of that day, and also for recognizing and honoring the extraordinary people of Soroka, every single one of them, women and men, each in their own role, from the first cleaner to the last doctor,” Galante said.
“These are people who put their own lives at risk, left their families at home, and rushed to the hospital that Saturday, driven by a deep inner conviction to help others, regardless of their religion, race, gender or political beliefs.”
Galante said the scale of the emergency went far beyond what a hospital would ordinarily be expected to handle.
“A hospital is not supposed to be able to function under circumstances like these,” he said. “The reason we succeeded, and what made all the difference, was the people.”
Dr. Shlomo Yaron Yishai, deputy director of Soroka’s Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery and one of the physicians featured in the documentary, said the experience revealed a level of teamwork and unity at the hospital that he had never witnessed before.
“I have worked at the hospital for more than 20 years and I know there are excellent departments, but I never imagined that the hospital could work as one unit,” Yishai said.
He said the response also inspired hope for the future.
“The joint work of all the people of Israel who worked here at the hospital to help the people of Israel is also a message of unity and hope,” Yishai said. “I think that terrible day personally gave me hope that things here can look a little different.”
