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. The blast also killed a gas technician and left a third worker, a man in his 20s, sedated and on a ventilator in serious condition.
What Happened on the Factory Floor
The man who died Thursday had been evacuated from the site in serious condition with multiple injuries, according to the hospital, which said doctors attempted prolonged resuscitation before he succumbed. The gas technician was pronounced dead on Wednesday, shortly after the explosion tore through the area where trucks were unloading industrial gas supplies. Police believe the blast was triggered by a gas cylinder that detonated during that unloading process, though the precise sequence of events is still being pieced together.
Kiryat Gat police commander Shai Aleli offered a preliminary account of the incident, describing how one truck had finished transferring material into the facility's storage tanks before disconnecting, after which a second truck connected to the same system. It was at that point, he said, that the explosion occurred. "We understand there was a malfunction," Aleli told reporters at the scene, while stopping short of attributing the blast to any specific cause. He added that investigators had found no indication so far of criminal activity or negligence, though the inquiry remains open.
A Toxic Gas Leak Compounded the Danger
Beyond the fire and structural damage, the explosion triggered a leak of nitrogen trifluoride, a compound widely used in semiconductor manufacturing to clean equipment during chip production. NF₃ does not burn, but it is highly toxic if inhaled, capable of causing severe respiratory damage and other acute health effects at sufficient concentration. Hazardous materials teams moved quickly to the site, running continuous air monitoring and risk assessments to track the plume and determine whether it posed a danger beyond the facility's boundaries. Authorities later confirmed that the threat to nearby residents had passed, though the episode underscores the particular hazards embedded in semiconductor fabrication, an industry that relies on a range of corrosive, flammable, and toxic gases to etch and clean silicon wafers.
Scrutiny Now Turns to Safety Protocols
Industrial gas handling, especially the transfer of pressurized cylinders between delivery trucks and storage tanks, is governed by strict protocols precisely because failures can cascade quickly from a mechanical fault into an explosion or toxic release. Investigators will likely examine whether the cylinder involved met inspection standards, whether the disconnection and reconnection sequence followed established procedure, and whether any warning signs were missed in the moments before the blast.
Intel's Kiryat Gat campus is one of the company's major production sites outside the United States, and incidents at facilities of this scale draw attention not only from local regulators but from an industry that depends on public confidence in the safety of chip manufacturing. With one investigation still underway and a third victim fighting for his life in intensive care, the full account of what went wrong, and what might have prevented it, is likely to take weeks to emerge.
