Until a month back, the CEO of Ichilov hospital, a leading 1,500-bed government hospital in central Tel Aviv, used to park his car at his designated spot in the underground parking of the hospital building.
Cut to present, the area has been transformed from a car parking lot into a functioning underground hospital as the war between Iran and US-Israel drags on.
The board, in Hebrew, declaring that the spot is reserved for the CEO stands, but the place now resembles a hospital ward - it houses rows and rows of small cubicles, separated by curtains, for patients. Each cubicle has a bed, an equipment table, oxygen supply.
A few of the wards like critical surgery, the neonatal ward, all those wards are still functioning over the ground because they are bomb protected.
NDTV's Ankit Tyagi visited the centre.
It is built at three levels underground, -2, -3, -4, into a fully functional hospital.
This is something that has been prepared by the vision of somebody in the hospital 20 years back, NDTV has learnt.
This facility has a capacity to hold over 1,000 people, 600 are being treated down here in the parking lot-turned hospital ward.
Four hours is all it took, a top doctor at the facility told NDTV when asked about the time it took them to move hospital operations down in the parking lot.
"It took us around four hours, four and a half hours to bring the whole hospital down, which is amazing. It was a Saturday. We were home and then we heard the sirens and basically the beginning of this current war. So we came to the hospital," Prof Yoav Barnea, chairman, plastic surgery department, Ichilov hospital, told NDTV, adding it is the "second time we're doing this".
The first time was during the 12-day war with Iran in June last year.
The doctor said they have the plan worked out to the last detail in case of an emergency.
"So we knew in advance. We had lists of patients, each department in case the war starts, which patient goes home with his family, which patient goes down to the parking lot. We knew excatly the
things we need to take with us downwards. And what are the things that are going to stay in the department, which is in the building, and what to bring down to the parking lot," he said.
The doctor pointed out that there's an army base not far from the hospital, suggesting that they can be attacked any time.
"There's a base, an army base, not far from here. Of course, it's targeted. And we have to be prepared that a missile could potentially hit the hospital. Last time in June, a Soroka hospital in the south received a direct hit from a missile," he said.
"When there are sirens, everybody comes down to the minus level, to the secure area. We defend ourselves like everybody else, because this place will potentially get hit by a missile. One month back, it was parking lot," he said.
Asked, where does he park now, the doctor said "really far".
"You see on the ground, you see the numbers of beds for patients. But now, I am parking really far," he said with a big smile.
