Israeli army takes reporters into Gaza tunnel under flattened Rafah

 

Israel has marched a small pool of foreign journalists into the bowels of Rafah — the once-crowded southern Gaza city now reduced to a skeletal wasteland — offering a rare, heavily stage-managed look at what it claims is one of Hamas’ most important underground super-tunnels.

 

With international reporters still barred from entering Gaza without military escort, soldiers shepherded journalists through a jagged crawl-space cut into the rubble. Inside, the passageway was claustrophobic: low ceilings forcing troops to duck, debris crunching underfoot, the air thick with dust and the stench of a long-sealed underworld. Israel says this labyrinth was a VIP highway for Hamas commanders, linking cities beneath the devastated enclave.

 

The military also insists the tunnel once held the body of Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin — killed in Gaza over a decade ago — whose remains Hamas returned last month under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal. That truce, now entering its final days, required Hamas to return all hostages, living or dead, in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Only one body remains unreturned.

 

But the temporary calm may be the easy part. Mediators warn phase two of the agreement — disarming Hamas and negotiating an Israeli withdrawal — poses political dynamite. Israel still occupies more than half of Gaza, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading to Washington within weeks to hash out “next steps” with President Donald Trump.

 

Rafah itself is unrecognisable. Israel’s operation last year — launched after Palestinians fled there en masse from earlier fighting — obliterated much of the city and displaced nearly a million people. Satellite images show that even buildings left standing after the battles were systematically levelled this year as Israel cemented control and shut the critical Rafah crossing.

 

Driving through the ruins on Monday, mangled concrete and twisted rebar rose in grotesque, towering heaps. Scattered among them: mattresses, children’s towels, and a book explaining the Quran — the last traces of a city erased.

 

1. Israel is staging controlled media visits — the military escorted journalists into a complex tunnel system in Rafah to show alleged Hamas command routes and to underscore its claim that Hamas hid hostage remains there, a powerful PR move as the ceasefire enters a delicate phase.

2. Rafah lies in ruins — heavy Israeli operations left much of the city flattened, nearly a million people displaced and the vital Rafah crossing shut; satellite imagery and on-the-ground scenes of rubble and personal debris paint a bleak picture for reconstruction and humanitarian access.

3. The real fight begins now — with the first-phase hostage exchanges mostly complete, the upcoming second phase — disarmament, Israeli withdrawal and formation of an international stabilization force — is far tougher and could stall progress despite diplomatic efforts in Washington and Doha.

 

SOURCE AP YAHOO

 

 

Trying hard for the justification of ethnic cleansing.

Let all the journalists in, it's obvious they are hiding something.