Gaza City CNN –
Even in the darkness, the utter devastation in northern Gaza is clearly visible. On the dirt roads across the Gaza Strip, the empty shells of buildings rise from the landscape, illuminated by the last wisps of light. At night, the only signs of life are Israel Defense Forces (IDF) vehicles rumbling through the countryside, tightening the military’s control over the northern sector.
On Saturday evening, we traveled to Gaza with the IDF to view the newly uncovered tunnel shaft discovered on the grounds of Al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave’s largest medical facility.
After crossing the border fence around 9 p.m. in the evening, our Humvee convoy turned off its lights and relied on night vision goggles to cross the Gaza Strip. We spent the next six hours in the Gaza Strip, much of that time getting back and forth from the tunnel shaft.
Almost every building on our path bore the scars of war damage. Many structures were completely destroyed, while others were barely recognizable as anything other than twisted metal. If there was life here, it was long gone. The residents had either moved south or been killed during the six-week war.
Oren Lieberman/CNN
Shortly after crossing the border into Gaza, the Humvee convoy turned off its lights and continued driving in the darkness.
Our first stop was a location on the beach where the IDF had set up a staging area. From there we boarded armored personnel carriers with several other reporters for the last kilometer to the hospital. The only view outside was provided by a night vision screen. But even in black and white, the extent of the destruction was shocking.
Within Gaza City, the skeletal remains of residential towers and high-rise buildings filled the otherwise empty city streets. Even if we could talk to the Palestinians during our involvement with the IDF, there would be no one to talk to.
CNN reported from the Gaza Strip and was accompanied at all times by IDF media. As a condition of journalists’ participation in this embedding, media outlets had to submit footage filmed in Gaza to the Israeli military for review and agree not to reveal sensitive locations and soldier identities. CNN retained editorial control of the final report.
When we got out of the armored vehicle, we were surrounded by complete darkness. We were only allowed to use our red lights to navigate to a nearby building, where we waited until Israeli forces already on the scene secured the area. The tunnel shaft was close by, but completely exposed.
The commander in charge of our group, Lt. Col. Tom, said this tunnel was significantly larger than others he had seen before. “It’s a big tunnel,” he said. “I came across tunnels in 2014 [Operation] Protective Edge, I was a company commander – and this tunnel is an order of magnitude larger than a standard tunnel.”
We expected to hear fighting as soon as we reached Gaza City. Instead we heard almost complete silence. Only once during our approximately 45 minute stay at the hospital did we hear the distant sound of small arms gunfire, and it was impossible to tell how far away it was in the middle of an urban environment. The rest of the time the silence made the darkness seem even more oppressive.
Oren Lieberman/CNN
The only view of the destruction in Gaza was through a small night vision monitor in an armored personnel carrier.
It was almost midnight when we walked the last few meters to the exposed tunnel shaft. The IDF had promised “concrete evidence” that Hamas was using the above-ground hospital complex as cover for what it called terror infrastructure underneath, including a command and control center.
A few days earlier, the IDF had reportedly released the first evidence, including weapons and ammunition they claimed to have found in the hospital itself. But the images were far from proving there was a Hamas facility underneath, and a CNN investigation found some of the weapons had been moved.
The next day’s discovery of the tunnel shaft was more convincing, showing an entrance to something underground. But even then, it was unclear what it was and how far down it went. This is what everyone has been trying to understand.
Standing at the edge of the tunnel shaft, it became clear that the structure itself was massive. Above, the remains of a ladder hung over the edge of the opening. In the middle of the round shaft was a center rod that looked like a hub for a spiral staircase. The shaft itself extended further down than we could see, especially in the dim light of our headlamps.
Videos 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 into a concrete tunnel. According to the IDF, the tunnel shaft extends approximately 10 meters downward and the tunnel extends for a length of 55 meters. At the end there is a metal door with a small window.
“We must destroy the underground facility we found,” said IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. “I think the leadership of Hamas is under a lot of pressure because we found this facility and now we are going to tear it down. It will cost us time. We’ll do it safely, but we’ll get there.”
It is arguably the most convincing evidence the IDF has presented to date that there may be a network of tunnels beneath the hospital. There is no certainty that there is a command center beneath Gaza’s largest hospital, but it is clear that there is a tunnel below. It is absolutely important to see what is connected to this tunnel.
For Israel, the stakes could not be higher. Israel has publicly claimed for weeks, if not years, that Hamas has built a terror infrastructure beneath the hospital. The ability to continue the war in the face of mounting international criticism depends in large part on Israel’s ability to prove this point.
Hamas has repeatedly denied that there is a network of tunnels beneath Shifa Hospital. Health officials who spoke to CNN said the same thing, insisting it was just a medical facility.
As is so rarely the case in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this answer is actually black and white. Either there are a series of underground tunnels below the hospital. Or there are none.