Hadassah National President Carol Ann Schwartz shared this message on July 31 in response to recent and ongoing threats to Israel’s safety:
Today, reports emerged that Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered a direct strike on Israel in response to the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh. This, after Hezbollah’s terror attack that struck a playground in the Druze village of Majdal Shams, killing 12 children and teens. Iran-backed Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist group, has been launching rockets indiscriminately at northern Israel nearly every day since October 8. Tens of thousands of Israelis — Jews, Muslims, Druze and Christians — remain displaced from their homes in the north due to the ongoing attacks, while the entire country continues to be traumatized by the horrors of October 7, the ongoing Hamas war and the devastating fact that over 120 hostages are still in captivity in Gaza.
Israel has an obligation to defend itself and its citizens against any forces that threaten the country and aim for its destruction. What was evident on October 7 is now clearer than ever: Israel is fighting for its very survival.
Now is the time to help Hadassah protect and heal the people of Israel.
Although the Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO) staff is ready for crisis situations and the hospitals’ underground facilities are ready for use during missile attacks, the potential dire consequences of a massive attack make additional provisions crucial for HMO — and our Youth Aliyah villages.
At this unprecedented moment, you can help us meet these urgent needs:
- Critical Expansion and War-ready Facilities: With your help, we can add six more underground operating theaters to the existing 13 in the Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower and complete the ICU facilities in the iconic Round Building at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem, significantly enhancing HMO's capacity to treat soldiers and mass civilian casualties and greatly increasing our wartime hospital capacity.
- Comprehensive Rehabilitative Care: Your contribution will ensure HMO can open the remaining five floors of the Gandel Rehabilitation Center, already partially open on the Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus campus, and fully equip this state-of-the-art facility, providing crucial care and support, including physical, occupational and speech therapies for the wounded who will need long-term rehabilitation.
- Addressing Trauma: Your support can help HMO maintain and expand its mental health response with essential psychological support and services for soldiers and civilians, adults and children experiencing trauma.
- Youth Aliyah: Hadassah's support of our youth villages, Meir Shfeyah and Hadassah Neurim, will continue, enabling the villages to provide critical psychological support and shelter for its students and faculty, as well as the ability, should they be called upon, to take in students from the north.
We’re grateful to our dedicated Hadassah supporters who have enabled us to take essential action over the last nine months. We turn to you again to help us meet the most pressing, emerging needs of this escalating crisis.
If there has ever been a time to support the people of Israel, it is now!