Iranian ballistic missiles struck Soroka Hospital in Beersheba in southern Israel and sites in the Tel Aviv area on Thursday morning, wounding 89, including three seriously.

A missile struck the hospital’s old surgical building, severely damaging it and causing what a Soroka spokesperson described as “extensive damage in various areas” of the hospital complex. The surgical building had been recently evacuated in light of the war, and patients and staff had been moved to areas with reinforced walls. Injuries from the strike were light, hospital representatives said.

Soroka is the largest hospital in the Negev, such that the strike left a large swath of Israel without a functioning major medical center. Other hospitals in the area, including Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon and Assuta Medical Center in Ashdod, prepared to take in patients from buildings that were damaged. Magen David Adom provided four intensive care buses, able to transport a total of 23 ICU patients and 50 lightly injured casualties.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar wrote that “The Iranian regime fired a ballistic missile at a hospital. The Iranian Regime deliberately targets civilians. The Iranian regime is committing war crimes. The Iranian regime has no red lines.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X that “Iran’s terrorist dictators shot missiles at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba and the civilian population in the center of the country. We will make the dictators in Tehran pay the full price.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that the price would be to destabilize the Islamic Republic’s regime.

“The prime minister and I instructed the IDF to increase the force of the attacks against strategic targets in Iran and against governmental targets in Tehran to remove the threats to the State of Israel and undermine the Ayatollahs’ regime,” he stated.

Iranian news agency IRNA claimed that the target of the strike was an IDF intelligence outpost in Beersheba’s HiTech Park, which is over a mile away from the hospital. A television channel tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that the missile was aimed at a “military hospital” in response to strikes on “civilian hospitals” in Gaza.

In the same 30-missile barrage, Iranian missiles struck a school in Holon. No children were present, because schools have been closed across Israel since Friday, but three elderly residents of adjacent buildings were wounded in serious condition, in addition to 62 others with minor to moderate injuries.

Another missile struck near the Ramat Gan Diamond Exchange, abutting Tel Aviv, causing minor injuries to 21 people and damage to 20 buildings in the neighborhood, which includes some of Israel’s tallest buildings.

Shrapnel struck Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s biggest hospital, also in Ramat Gan.

Overnight, the IDF intercepted several drones launched by Iran at Israel towards central and northern Israel. 

Jordanian authorities reported that an Iranian drone fell in a shopping center north of Amman, damaging a car and a bus station. Syrian media reported that an Iranian drone was shot down over the country.

The IDF struck an inactive nuclear reactor near Arak in Iran early Thursday after sending warnings to civilians in the area. The IDF Spokesperson’s Office said the strike included “the structure of the reactor’s core seal, which is a key component in plutonium production.”

“The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said.

The IDF also gave details of strikes on the active nuclear site in Natanz, which “contained components and specialized equipment used to advance nuclear weapons development and projects designed to accelerate the regime’s nuclear program.” 

In addition, 40 IAF fighter jets struck dozens of military targets in Tehran and other parts of the country, including factories manufacturing ballistic missile and air-defense components, as well as air-defense batteries, surface-to-surface missile storage sites, radar systems and other targets.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir sent a letter of encouragement to IDF soldiers and commanders on Thursday, saying that they are “writing a new chapter in history for the State of Israel and the entire Middle East.”

”Thanks to a decisive and impressive surprise opening strike, we have achieved tremendous goals: We eliminated the regime’s command echelons, delivered a deep blow to the capabilities used for the Iranian nuclear program, identified and struck missile launchers, and we are continuing and increasing the strength of our operations as necessary,” Zamir wrote.

Iranian news reported that the country’s military shot down a second Israeli Hermes Drome. The IDF confirmed that Iran downed the first UAV a day earlier.

Israel’s Home Front Command loosened restrictions on Israelis on Wednesdays, allowing people to return to workplaces with safe rooms and for up to 30 people to attend synagogue at a time. Schools and kindergartens remained closed.

A poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 70% of Israelis support the campaign launched against Iran last week, while 10% support the campaign but think the timing is wrong and 13.5% oppose it. Among Israeli Jews, 82% support the strikes, whereas only 11% of Israeli Arabs do, according to the poll. Jewish Israelis across the political spectrum support the operation: 57% of those who self-identify as left-wing, 75% of centrists and 90% on the right.

Though in past polls, most Jewish Israelis did not think Israel should strike Iran without help from the U.S., this week 69% thought it was the right decision. In addition, 68% of Jewish Israelis thought that Netanyahu’s motivation behind launching the operation against Iran was security-related, while 68% of Arab Israelis thought it was political.

The poll was conducted this Sunday-Tuesday among 594 Israelis, with a 3.61% margin of error.

Eight Israelis were killed by Iranian missile strikes in five locations that occurred Sunday night and early Monday morning.

In the central Israeli city of Petach Tikva, five people were killed in a residential building, and in adjacent Bnei Brak, an 80-year-old man was found dead at the site of a missile strike.

Two of the people killed in Petach Tikva were inside their safe room, which was directly hit by a missile. Israel’s Home Front Command explained that safe rooms are built to protect from shrapnel, shards and shock waves, but not a direct hit, which is a rare occurrence. The Home Front Command emphasized that everyone else in the building who was in a safe room was not even injured. Petach Tikva Mayor Rami Grinberg said that the residence was struck by a ballistic missile carrying hundreds of kilograms of explosives.

Tel Aviv sustained two direct missile strikes, one of which lightly damaged the U.S. Embassy Branch Office. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee clarified that “the minor damage to the property were from the shock waves … from the nearby blast … No injuries, thank God!” 

Among the residents evacuated from buildings in Tel Aviv was a six-day-old baby, whose mother was found minutes later.  

In Haifa, three people were found dead under the rubble of a burning building where a missile hit, and about 300 people were evacuated. The Israel Electric Corporation said that the strike damaged its power grid, and that “teams are working on the ground to neutralize safety hazards, in particular the risk of electrocution.” Maritime risk assessment company Ambrey reported a fire at the Haifa Port. 

Israel continued to intercept Iranian and Houthi drones heading to Israel’s north on Monday morning.

About 50 Israeli fighter jets and aircraft struck some 100 military targets in Isfahan in central Iran overnight, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said on Monday.

Among those targets were missile storage sites, surface-to-surface missile launchers and command centers. Israel has destroyed over 120 missile launchers since the beginning of the operation, about a third of Iran’s total launchers. In one strike overnight, the IAF identified an attempt to launch missiles towards Israel in real time and destroyed the cell and missiles.

The IDF confirmed on Monday that it killed the head of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence Mohammad Kazemi and his deputy, Hassan Mohaqiq, on Sunday. 

The IDF also struck a command center of the Quds Force, part of the IRGC, for the first time, according to the IDF spokesperson. The Quds Force “planned acts of terror against Israel through the Iranian regime’s proxies in the Middle East.”

Israel also reportedly struck near nuclear sites in Fordow. The Wall Street Journal reported that parts of the underground nuclear enrichment site in Natanz collapsed as a result of Israeli strikes.

The IAF struck Mashhad, in eastern Iran, on Sunday afternoon, destroying an Iranian refueling aircraft. Mashhad, some 2300 km (1429 mi) away from Israel, is the farthest Israeli fighter jets have flown in Iran, and, according to some experts, the farthest in any Israeli operation, ever.

The Israeli Navy used a new air defense system called Thunder Shield and LRAD long-range interceptors on Sa’ar 6 ships to intercept eight Iranian drones overnight. The seaborne systems, which have intercepted some 25 projectiles since the beginning of Operation Rising Lion on Thursday night, are able to intercept UAVs, cruise missiles, sea-to-land missiles and more.

Also Monday, the death toll rose to eight from an Iranian strike on Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv. The total number of Israeli fatalities since the beginning of the operation rose to 24 with almost 600 injured. Iran has shot around 350 missiles at Israel.

The Iranian Health Ministry claimed on Sunday that 224 people had been killed since Israel’s operation began Friday with another 1,277 people hospitalized.

When Matt Weiss was in his early 20s, he would often sneak out of his Brooklyn yeshiva to perform at various events. As the lead keyboardist for an in-demand cover group called the EvanAl Orchestra, Weiss was playing about four nights a week throughout the tri-state region. “We were a very popular wedding band in the regular Orthodox circles,” he said. 

Eventually, Weiss’s teachers found out what he was up to, and, as he recalls, considered kicking him out. He convinced them otherwise. “I explained to them, ‘would you rather a guy who you don’t know what he’s doing, or would you rather a guy who wants to learn at your yeshiva, but this is a great outlet?’” he recalled saying. “It’s not like I’m going to the clubs.”

It is interesting that Weiss should defend himself in that way, because he has made it abundantly clear since then that his main desire is to go to the clubs. In his mid-20s, Weiss discovered electronic dance music and left EvanAl behind to pursue a career as a DJ. Now 29, Weiss — who performs by the stage name Matt Dubb, as in the letter ‘w’ — has built a reputation for himself as an in-demand electronic music artist.

Weiss occupies a unique role in the Orthodox music world, though it is one he initially straddled uneasily. “People were like, what’s this guy doing? He’s bringing club music into the Jewish world,” Weiss said. “You would see these comments on YouTube that were nasty.”

His detractors were right in one sense: Weiss’s music sounds as if it belongs in a nightclub or at a rave, and that is, of course, where he wants it to be heard. But it is also intimately in touch with the ritual of ecstatic song and dance in Jewish culture, creating a kind of tension — a push and pull between innovation and tradition — that has driven much of Jewish-American art. 

For Weiss, who sings and produces as well — he rarely records in English — house music is a kind of alternate religion. “To me, it’s so deep and spiritual,” he told Jewish Insider in an interview from his home in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn. “People think it’s just, like, party music. But it’s so deep. A good beat hits me in the soul.”

Weiss first started DJing when he was performing with EvanAl. Then, traveling abroad to music festivals in Ibiza and throughout Europe, he was introduced to a whole new style of entertainment — one he wanted to learn himself. “I would hear the top, top DJs and be, like, ‘I feel like I could do this,’” he recalled. 

He quickly found his footing. His first album, in 2015, was with the renowned Hasidic pop singer Lipa Schmeltzer, who had previously sung with EvanAl. B Positive was a stylistic departure for Schmeltzer, who had released nearly 20 albums and was unused to the accompaniment of pulsing beats and buzzing synth lines that Weiss taught himself to make via YouTube videos and a computer program. “It was a big risk to do that album,” Schmeltzer told JI. Still, he did it anyway. “I trusted Matt,” he said.

Matt Dubb and Lipa Schmeltzer

Weiss’s affinity for the international house music scene makes sense in light of his parochial background. “He’s a frum kid from Lakewood,” said Ruli Ezrachi, a singer and musician who works as Weiss’s manager. In fact, Weiss grew up on top of a shul in Lakewood, N.J., that his father built. He went on to attend yeshivas in Edison, Staten Island and Brooklyn until the age of 25, when he moved on to DJing.

“I was never rebellious,” Weiss said, adding that his father was supportive of his nontraditional route. Weiss isn’t married and has never studied in Israel, though he has been there several times for gigs. Still, as a testament to his religious devotion, he prays with a minyan three times a day and tries to study the Talmud for about 45 minutes each night.

“Even if he goes to Mexico on vacation,” said Ezrachi, “he’s going to be in the Chabad House every morning at 9 a.m. for the minyan.”

Weiss’s best-known songs include the old-world “Baruch Hashem,” with Zusha and Pumpidisa; the bright and earnest “Adama V’shamayim,” which came out in 2019; and his most recent release, from late May, “Ana,” featuring the Israeli singer Itzik Dadya. 

Ezrachi described Weiss as a perfectionist who works on just one song at a time. Normally, he said, Weiss will come up with a beat that functions as a kind of rough sketch for the song to come. Then he will write a melody around it or he’ll find someone who can do it alone or with whom he can partner. The final step: Ezrachi helps Weiss look for a lyricist as well as a singer. “Or sometimes Matt says, ‘I don’t care, I’m just gonna sing it myself.’”

Weiss has played a number of high-profile events since he started in electronic music, such as the Jewish Music Carnival in upstate New York and a Camp HASC fundraiser at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall. But he has yet to break into the secular club scene, a goal he hopes to accomplish soon — not exactly an uncommon wish among Orthodox performers. 

“I have yet to actually do a gig in a mainstream club,” he told JI. “Right now, I only do religious Jewish events. I’ve never played at a club that’s not a Jewish party. I’ve played a club on Purim.”

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Weiss had been scheduled to DJ at a popular electronic music festival in Miami. The March 19 show, featuring such marquee names as Desiigner, Mariah and FatBoy SSE, was supposed to be a coming-out of sorts for Weiss. But the show was cancelled when the virus hit.

Lately, though, Weiss has focused his energy on finance. In 2018, he founded a brokerage firm, Dubbs Holdings, and now invests in businesses around the country through a separate business, Supreme Capital. He has found some success, he said, and at the moment, he is working to build on it, though he wants to pursue music exclusively at some point. “That is the dream,” he said. “But I’m realistic right now.”

There are some signs that may happen soon. He is currently working on a song in partnership with a famous performer with an Orthodox background who managed to find fame beyond the Orthodox community. The artist’s name, Weiss said, could not yet be revealed to the public.

Still, despite his desire to move beyond the Orthodox music scene, it is clear that Weiss has no intention of abandoning his identity as an Orthodox Jew. “I’m very spiritual,” he told JI. “I don’t want to switch that. Like, I don’t want my songs to be about girls. I want them to be about God and stuff like that — spiritual — but I’d love for it to be played everywhere.”

He at least takes comfort in the belief that he has earned several converts within his own community since he started on his path in music. “In the beginning, people hated me,” Matt Dubb said. “But the world has changed.”