A 49-year-old man died Thursday at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba from injuries sustained in an explosion the previous day at Intel's manufacturing facility in Kiryat Gat, raising the death toll to two. He had been evacuated from the scene in serious condition with multiple injuries and succumbed despite prolonged resuscitation efforts, according to the hospital.
A Blast During Routine Unloading
The explosion occurred Wednesday as trucks were unloading material into storage tanks at the facility. A gas technician was pronounced dead that same day after sustaining critical injuries. A third worker, a man in his 20s, remains in serious condition in Soroka's medical intensive care unit, sedated and on a ventilator.
Police believe the blast was triggered by a gas cylinder that detonated during the unloading process. Kiryat Gat police commander Shai Aleli described the sequence of events at the scene: one truck had finished unloading and disconnected, and a second truck had just connected when the explosion occurred. "We understand there was a malfunction," he said, adding that investigators have not yet established whether negligence or criminal activity played a role.
Toxic Leak Raised Broader Safety Concerns
The explosion sparked a fire and triggered a leak of nitrogen trifluoride, a gas widely used in semiconductor manufacturing for cleaning and etching processes. NF₃ is not flammable, but it is highly toxic if inhaled, capable of causing severe respiratory damage and other acute health effects even in relatively small concentrations.
Hazardous materials teams were deployed to monitor air quality and assess risk in the surrounding area throughout the response. Authorities have since confirmed that the threat to nearby residents has been removed, though the handling of industrial gases at large fabrication plants remains a subject of ongoing scrutiny given the scale of chemical storage and transport involved in chip manufacturing.
Why Semiconductor Plants Carry Elevated Risk
Facilities like the one in Kiryat Gat rely on a dense infrastructure of specialty gases, many of them toxic, corrosive, or reactive, delivered and stored in bulk to support continuous production. Unloading operations, where cylinders or tanker trucks are connected and disconnected from plant systems, are widely recognized within the industry as a point of heightened vulnerability, since even minor equipment failure or human error during these transfers can have serious consequences.
The incident is likely to renew attention on safety protocols governing gas handling at large industrial sites, including inspection schedules, equipment certification, and worker training standards. Investigators will need to determine whether the malfunction described by police points to a mechanical defect, a procedural lapse, or an unforeseen combination of factors, a process that typically involves regulatory bodies as well as internal company review.