Even in the darkness, the utter devastation in northern Gaza is clear as day. The empty shells of buildings, illuminated by the last shreds of light, lurch out of the landscape on the dirt roads across the Gaza Strip. At night, the only signs of life are the Israel Defense Forces\u00a0(IDF)\u00a0vehicles that rumble the landscape, tightening the military\u2019s grip on the northern sector. <\/p>\n
On Saturday night, we traveled with the IDF into Gaza to see the newly exposed tunnel shaft discovered at the compound of Al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave\u2019s largest medical facility. <\/p>\n
After crossing the border fence at around 9:00 in the evening, our convoy of Humvees turned off its lights, relying on night vision goggles to traverse the Gaza Strip. We would spend the next six hours inside\u00a0Gaza, much of that time spent getting back and forth from the tunnel shaft. <\/p>\n
Along our path, virtually every building bore the scars of wartime damage. Many structures were destroyed entirely, while others were hardly recognizable as anything more than twisted metal. If there was life here, it\u00a0had\u00a0long since departed. Residents had either moved south or been killed during six weeks of war. <\/p>\n
Our first stop was a location on the beach where the IDF had set up a staging area. From there, we moved into armored personnel carriers with several other reporters for the last kilometer to the hospital. The only view outside came through a night-vision screen. But even\u00a0in black and white, the level of destruction was shocking. <\/p>\n
Inside Gaza City, the skeletal remains of apartment towers and high-rise buildings packed the otherwise vacant city streets. Even if we could speak to Palestinians while embedded with the IDF, there\u00a0was no one around to talk to. <\/p>\n
As we stepped\u00a0out of the armored vehicle, we\u00a0were\u00a0enveloped by utter darkness. We\u00a0were only allowed to use our red lights to navigate to a nearby building, where we waited\u00a0until Israeli forces already on the ground secured\u00a0the area. The tunnel shaft\u00a0was\u00a0very close by, but it\u00a0was\u00a0entirely exposed. <\/p>\n
The commander in charge of our group, Lt. Col. Tom\u00a0said\u00a0this tunnel is significantly larger than others he had\u00a0seen before. \u201cThis is a big tunnel,\u201d he said. \u201cI have encountered tunnels \u2014 in 2014 in [Operation] Protective Edge, I was a company commander \u2014 and this tunnel is an order of magnitude bigger than a standard tunnel.\u201d <\/p>\n
We had expected to hear fighting once we entered Gaza City itself. Instead, we heard almost complete silence. Only once during our roughly 45 minutes at the hospital did we hear the distant sound of small arms fire, and it\u00a0was\u00a0impossible to tell how far away it was in the midst of an urban environment. The rest of the time, the silence made the darkness feel even more oppressive. <\/p>\n
It\u00a0was\u00a0nearing midnight as we walked\u00a0the last few feet to the exposed tunnel shaft. The IDF had promised \u201cconcrete evidence\u201d that Hamas was using the hospital complex above ground as cover for what it called terror infrastructure underneath, including a command and control hub. <\/p>\n
The discovery of the tunnel shaft the next day was more compelling, showing an entrance to something underground. But even then, it was unclear what it was or how far down it went.\u00a0This is what everyone has been trying to understand. <\/p>\n
Standing on the edge of the tunnel shaft, it was apparent that the structure itself was substantial. At the top, the remains of a ladder hung over the lip of the opening. In the center of the round shaft, a center pole looked like a hub for a spiral staircase. The shaft itself extended down farther than we could see, especially in the meager light of our headlamps. <\/p>\n
Video released by the IDF from inside the shaft showed what we could not see from the top of the opening. The video shows a spiral staircase leading down into a concrete tunnel. The IDF said the tunnel shaft extends downwards approximately 10 meters and the tunnel runs for 55 meters. At its end stands a metal door with a small window. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to demolish the underground facility that we found,\u201d said IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. \u201cI think the leadership of Hamas is in great pressure because we found this facility, and we are now going to demolish it. It\u2019s going to take us time. We\u2019re going to do it safely, but we\u2019re going to do it.\u201d <\/p>\n
It is arguably the most compelling evidence thus far that the IDF has offered that there may be a network of tunnels below the hospital. It does not establish without a doubt that there is a command center under Gaza\u2019s largest hospital, but it is clear that there is a tunnel down below. Seeing what connects to that tunnel is absolutely critical. <\/p>\n
For Israel, the stakes could not be higher. Israel has publicly asserted for weeks, if not years, that Hamas has built terror infrastructure below the hospital. The ability to continue to prosecute the war in the face of mounting international criticism depends to a large extent on Israel being able to prove this point. <\/p>\n
As is so rarely the case in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this answer truly is black and white. Either there is an underground series of tunnels below the hospital.\u00a0Or there is not. <\/p>\n
Clarification: The headline on this story has been updated to reflect that the tunnel shaft was discovered on the grounds of the Al-Shifa hospital complex.\u00a0<\/em> <\/p>\n\n Even in the darkness, the utter devastation in northern Gaza is clear as day. The empty shells of buildings, illuminated by the last shreds of light, lurch out of the landscape on the dirt roads across the Gaza Strip. At night, the only signs of life are the Israel Defense Forces\u00a0(IDF)\u00a0vehicles that rumble the landscape, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}