Israeli tanks drive back and forth, tirelessly digging into loose and unstable ground. In this district of Khan Younes, in southern Gaza, there is only devastation, mud and gutted buildings, riddled with impacts, emptied of any population.
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In the middle of a crater, the entrance to a tunnel. The army on Saturday brought a group of journalists into the heart of the city, where fighting has been concentrated for several weeks, to show them what was said to be a former Hamas underground command center.
The tank guns are aimed at the buildings, fearing that fighters from the Palestinian Islamist movement are still hiding there. Soldiers on foot comb the area with concentration and monitor the buildings in the distance through telescopes. An excavator is working.
This site of devastation is located just a few hundred meters from Salaheddine Avenue, which runs north to south through the Gaza Strip. A city center, or rather what remains of it.
The soldiers slide their feet into the tunnel before fully entering it and accessing concrete corridors whose ceilings are just high enough for a man wearing a helmet to stand on. They are equipped with night vision goggles.
The corridor leads to a large room, the suspected command center, which the army says is located beneath a cemetery. The journalists didn't see him before entering the tunnel. The information cannot be verified. Nobody knows what's left of it.
“We are in the middle of a cemetery in Khan Yunis and this cemetery is a military complex. A Hamas military complex, above and below ground,” said Dan Goldfus, an Israeli commander.
“Look at the time, money and effort that went into this tunnel,” the officer with the salt-and-pepper beard said as he walked through the tunnel.
80% of the network intact
Dirty plates and empty and oxidized cans were left behind in a large kitchen. A little further away is a sink connected to pipes leading to the surface.
Explosions and shots can be heard. Soldiers continue to search for additional entrances to the tunnel network.
Last month, the Army claimed to have discovered the largest network to date. According to an AFP photographer who had access to them, the corridors were wide enough for a small car.
Since the 2014 war, Hamas has dug underground stretches in the Gaza Strip, nicknamed the “Gaza Metro,” where Hamas fighters hole up, sometimes as much as 30 or 40 meters underground, out of reach.
Trapdoor systems allow the rocket launchers to be taken out, fired a few volleys, and then hidden again.
The Israeli army bombed the network intensively in 2021. Although some of these tunnels have probably been known to their services since then, they have not been able to produce an accurate map. And the tunnels have become one of their main targets since the war began.
A study released Oct. 17 by the American Academy West Point's Modern War Institute mentioned 1,300 tunnels for more than 300 miles of underground corridors.
The Israeli army said in early December it had discovered more than 800, 500 of which were destroyed. But on Sunday, the Wall Street Journal quoted U.S. and Israeli officials admitting that 80% of the network was intact.
The war was triggered by Hamas's unprecedented attack on October 7, which killed around 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
In response, Israel vowed to “destroy” the Islamist movement, which it, like the United States and the European Union, classifies as terrorist, and launched a huge military operation in Gaza that left 26,422 people dead, the vast majority women and children and teenagers said the latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health on Sunday.
“Every war has its peculiarities,” concludes Dan Goldfus as he returns to the surface. “The characteristics of this war are that the maneuvers are carried out on the surface and underground.”
He adds: “We are achieving our goals. Slow”.