Galilee Medical Center (GMC) is a government-owned general hospital that was established shortly after the founding of the State of Israel in Nahariya in the Western Galilee. Today it is the sole medical center in the region, serving a diverse population of 600,000 Jews, Moslems, Christians and Druze – civilians and soldiers.

GMC’s strategic location, a mere six miles from the hostile Lebanese border, requires it to maintain the highest standards of preparedness in case of emergency situations. The hospital must always be ready to provide advanced treatment for multiple casualty events involving both civilian and military populations. During the Second Lebanon War of 2006, the Medical Center suffered a direct hit from a missile, and numerous lives were saved thanks to the fact that the hospital had transferred its activities to its fortified underground facilities, the first and only one of its kind in Israel at that time.

Galilee Medical Center received international acknowledgment for its professional and humane treatment of 3,000 wounded Syrians – 70% of all the victims who were brought to Israel in order to receive humanitarian aid during the bloody civil war in Syria. 

In recent years, GMC has undergone an unprecedented overhaul: dozens of new departments and new medical services were inaugurated, some in fields that were previously unavailable to residents of the periphery. These include the new neurosurgery department; the cerebral angiography unit; head surgery; oral and maxillofacial specialists, and others.

In addition to being the largest surgical center in the Galilee, GMC is the principal teaching hospital for the Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Medicine in the Galilee, training approximately two-thirds of its medical students.