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 navy 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, suffering from remnants of meals and soiled dishes, had been embellished with a quaint, if incongruous, motif of teapots and teacups.
The Israeli navy stated that roughly 20 hostages had been stored within the compound at numerous instances. It stated it pieced that evaluation collectively primarily based on testimony it stated 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 individuals, had been later dispersed to different places in Gaza, the navy stated.
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 in the course of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel, during which about 1,200 individuals had been killed, in line with Israeli officers. Greater than 25,000 Gazans have been killed thus far, most of them civilians, in line with well being authorities within the enclave, following a punishing counterattack by Israel.
A journalist for The New York Instances descended on Friday morning into the darkish labyrinth resulting in the compound underneath Khan Younis, escorted by Israeli troopers and navy officers to indicate what they stated had been the situations during 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 type of rocket-propelled grenade, and bearing the insignia of Hamas’s navy 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 Purple 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 combating in Gaza, appeared more and more torn between the dueling war goals of dismantling Hamas’s navy and its governing talents and of releasing the remaining 130 or so captives, which can more than likely require a diplomatic deal involving a cease-fire.
No less than 25 of the captives have already been declared lifeless, and lots of Israelis worry that point is operating out for the remainder. The navy offensive has slowed, difficult by the sheer scope and class of Hamas’s huge tunnel community that crisscrosses the Palestinian enclave, extending for hundreds of miles, in line with Israeli intelligence.
Beneath Khan Younis alone, the navy estimates that Hamas dug no less than 100 miles of tunnels throughout a number of ranges, creating an inverted, multistory advanced.
“We’re combating in Khan Younis above floor and beneath floor,” stated Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli navy, who led the tour of the subterranean compound on Friday. He added, “This type of warfare is in contrast to another fashionable battlefield wherever on this planet.”
The spiraling dying toll in Gaza has elevated worldwide strain on Israel to finish the battle. Above floor, a lot of Gaza is in ruins.
“Israel doesn’t search destruction,” Admiral Hagari stated. “This battle is a tragedy.” However there isn’t a option to destroy tunnels constructed beneath civilian areas with out damaging the buildings above, he stated, including, “Hamas is aware of that.”
The Instances and different journalists accepted a navy escort to go to the underground compound and safe uncommon entry to wartime Gaza, which is especially 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 condo 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 underneath the residence of a Hamas operative, was booby-trapped with explosives, in line with the Israeli navy. 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 navy stated. By the point the troopers reached the carpeted chamber and cells, the hostages had been moved to a different location, the navy stated, 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 toes — or about six flooring — underground. To achieve it required strolling single file via 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 geared up with primary mild fittings, the Israeli navy stated troopers had discovered two drawings by a baby. The navy confirmed pictures of the drawings — each of a home in opposition to a backdrop of hills with a solar and clouds within the sky — that it stated had been drawn by Emilia Aloni, 5, an Israeli woman who was kidnapped along 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, underneath the non permanent truce deal in November.
In interviews with Israeli tv channels after the hostages’ launch, Ms. Aloni displayed photos she stated had been drawn by her daughter in captivity that intently resembled these the Israeli navy stated had been discovered within the compound underneath Khan Younis.
Within the tv interviews, Ms. Aloni stated 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.” Finally, she stated, they got here to a type of “cave” the place there have been a couple of dozen different captives, together with wounded older individuals and a youngster.
Ms. Aloni recalled sleeping on mattresses subsequent to different hostages in extraordinarily humid situations with little air, making it exhausting to breathe.
The Alonis had been held underground for a number of days after which moved to an condo above floor the place they stayed for almost two weeks with different hostages, Ms. Aloni stated. They had been then returned to the tunnels for security, she stated, 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 during which it offered its personal narrative of current occasions, the group stated 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 obtained little meals and water, insufficient medical therapy, if any, and had been stored in powerful situations.
The Israeli navy stated among the hostages had been stored within the central chamber and others within the slim cells with the barred doorways. The cells had scientific 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 stated that strands of hair had been discovered within the cells, in addition to a bra. The navy stated DNA testing matched the hair with hostages, however didn’t say who.
Ayala Metzger, the daughter-in-law of Yoram Metzger, 80, who continues to be a captive in Gaza, instructed Israel’s Channel 12 Information on Sunday that his DNA was discovered on garments left behind within the compound.
A boiler offered scorching water when there was electrical energy.
Any hostages stored within the compound would have had little sense of time beneath floor, or of the destruction going down on the floor.
Rising again into daylight two hours after getting into the tunnel, the subterranean silence was changed for the reporters accompanying the Israeli navy on Friday by the sounds of battle. 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.
Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem.