In a subterranean compound deep beneath Khan Younis, a Hamas stronghold within the southern Gaza Strip, the 5 cells with barred doorways that the Israeli army says held hostages kidnapped from Israel had clearly been constructed lengthy prematurely.
The tunnel builders even paid some consideration to décor: The tiled partitions of a small kitchenette within the compound, affected by remnants of meals and soiled dishes, had been embellished with a quaint, if incongruous, motif of teapots and teacups.
The Israeli army mentioned that roughly 20 hostages had been saved within the compound at numerous occasions. It mentioned it pieced that evaluation collectively based mostly on testimony it mentioned it gathered from the captives, in addition to proof like DNA. Some had been launched among the many greater than 100 hostages freed throughout a weeklong truce in late November, whereas others, together with older folks, had been later dispersed to different areas in Gaza, the army mentioned.
There was no impartial affirmation of the Israeli account of the compound, however particulars offered to Israeli media by one of many hostages — who was freed in November and, Israel says, held within the Khan Younis compound — aligns with a few of these assertions.
Some 240 captives had been seized through the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel, through which about 1,200 folks had been killed, in response to Israeli officers. Greater than 25,000 Gazans have been killed to this point, most of them civilians, in response to well being authorities within the enclave, following a counterattack by Israel.
A journalist for The New York Instances descended on Friday morning into the darkish labyrinth resulting in the compound below Khan Younis, escorted by Israeli troopers and army officers to indicate what they mentioned had been the circumstances through which the hostages had been held.
An arched chamber on the mouth of the hall resulting in the cells with barred doorways was lined with inexperienced carpeting, like pretend grass, and strewed with detritus.
Amid a jumble of blankets with floral patterns and plastic bottles lay a number of empty tubes labeled RPG-7VR, a form of rocket-propelled grenade, and bearing the insignia of Hamas’s army wing, the Qassam Brigades. In a dim nook, there have been 4 standing followers, a half-used pack of disposable diapers and a steel Palestine Crimson Crescent Society first-aid case containing a packet of latex gloves and some sealed gauze pads.
The guided go to to the compound got here as Israel, after greater than 100 days of preventing in Gaza, appeared more and more torn between the dueling struggle objectives of dismantling Hamas’s army and its governing skills and of liberating the remaining 130 or so captives, which is able to most definitely require a diplomatic deal involving a cease-fire.
Not less than 25 of the captives have already been declared lifeless, and plenty of Israelis worry that point is working out for the remaining. The army offensive has slowed, sophisticated by the sheer scope and class of Hamas’s huge tunnel community that crisscrosses the Palestinian enclave, extending for tons of of miles, in response to Israeli intelligence.
Beneath Khan Younis alone, the army estimates that Hamas dug at the least 100 miles of tunnels throughout a number of ranges, creating an inverted, multistory complicated.
“We’re preventing in Khan Younis above floor and beneath floor,” mentioned Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli army, who led the tour of the subterranean compound on Friday. He added, “This type of warfare is not like some other fashionable battlefield anyplace on this planet.”
The spiraling loss of life toll in Gaza has elevated worldwide strain on Israel to finish the struggle. Above floor, a lot of Gaza is in ruins.
“Israel doesn’t search destruction,” Admiral Hagari mentioned. “This struggle is a tragedy.” However there isn’t any technique to destroy tunnels constructed beneath civilian areas with out damaging the buildings above, he mentioned, including, “Hamas is aware of that.”
The Instances and different journalists accepted a army escort to go to the underground compound and safe uncommon entry to wartime Gaza, which is principally off-limits to the surface information media.
After a half-hour journey in an armored car, the journalists had been taken to a ground-level entrance with an open steel door within the aspect of a three-story condominium constructing that led down a staircase to a maze of tunnels that branched out in several instructions. The neighborhood, in jap Khan Younis, had been evacuated.
The tunnel entrance, positioned below the residence of a Hamas operative, was booby-trapped with explosives, in response to the Israeli army. As troopers of the 98th Paratroopers Division superior alongside the underground route, they encountered blast doorways and engaged in shut fight with a number of fighters, who had been killed, the army mentioned. By the point the troopers reached the carpeted chamber and cells, the hostages had been moved to a different location, the army mentioned, with out saying when it believed hostages had final been current there.
The compound was a couple of half-mile into the warren of tunnels, which was lined with electrical energy and communications cables, and about 65 ft — or about six flooring — underground. To achieve it required strolling single file by means of pitch darkness and strolling down lengthy flights of stairs carved into the earth. The air was thick and humid.
Within the deserted chamber, which was outfitted with primary mild fittings, the Israeli army mentioned troopers had discovered two drawings by a baby. The army confirmed images of the drawings — each of a home towards a backdrop of hills with a solar and clouds within the sky — that it mentioned had been drawn by Emilia Aloni, 5, an Israeli woman who was kidnapped together with her mom, Danielle Aloni, 44, on Oct. 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz. After almost seven weeks in captivity, the Alonis had been launched in a primary group of 13 hostages, all ladies and kids, below the short-term truce deal in November.
In interviews with Israeli tv channels after the hostages’ launch, Ms. Aloni displayed footage she mentioned had been drawn by her daughter in captivity that intently resembled these the Israeli army mentioned had been discovered within the compound below Khan Younis.
Within the tv interviews, Ms. Aloni mentioned she and her daughter had been taken right into a tunnel quickly after arriving in Gaza after which walked for hours in what she described as an “underground metropolis.” Ultimately, she mentioned, they got here to a form of “cave” the place there have been a couple of dozen different captives, together with wounded older folks and a youngster.
Ms. Aloni recalled sleeping on mattresses subsequent to different hostages in extraordinarily humid circumstances with little air, making it onerous to breathe.
The Alonis had been held underground for a number of days after which moved to an condominium above floor the place they stayed for almost two weeks with different hostages, Ms. Aloni mentioned. They had been then returned to the tunnels for security, she mentioned, as Israeli fighter jets pounded Gaza.
Ms. Aloni appeared in a hostage video in late October with two different ladies, Rimon Kirsht, 36, and Yelena Trupanob, 50, who had been additionally launched a month later.
In a doc launched on Sunday by Hamas through which it offered its personal narrative of current occasions, the group mentioned that it “dealt in a optimistic and type method with all of the civilians who’ve been held in Gaza.”
Most of the launched hostages say they acquired little meals and water, insufficient medical remedy, if any, and had been saved in powerful circumstances.
The Israeli army mentioned a number of the hostages had been saved within the central chamber and others within the slim cells with the barred doorways. The cells had medical white-tiled partitions damaged by a vertical purple stripe with a bathroom and sink at the back of each; some additionally had a small bathe nozzle. Troopers escorting the journalists mentioned that strands of hair had been discovered within the cells, in addition to a bra. The army mentioned DNA testing matched the hair with hostages, however didn’t say who.
A boiler offered sizzling water when there was electrical energy.
Any hostages saved within the compound would have had little sense of time beneath floor, or of the destruction happening on the floor.
Rising again into daylight two hours after coming into the tunnel, the subterranean silence was changed for the reporters accompanying the Israeli army on Friday by the sounds of struggle. A drone whined within the sky. Sharp cracks and booms stirred up plumes of darkish smoke.
The neighborhood is a wasteland, surrounded by mounds of earth and rubble and churned up roads.
Inside the home that Israel says belonged to the Hamas operative, a marble staircase hinted at a degree of opulence. Copper and gold curtains nonetheless hung at blown-out home windows in a lower-floor bed room, and most of an out of doors wall had gone. Not one constructing within the neighborhood seemed liveable.
By Saturday, the tunnels and the compound beneath the neighborhood had been blown up.
