Inside a network of tunnels in Gaza, Israeli troops say they have found a Hamas cell used to hold hostages
The road into Gaza is a boggy quagmire. We drove for over an hour, in heavily armoured Israeli military vehicles, through deserted and destroyed neighbourhoods in the south of the strip.
There are no windows to see out of, but from the video feed on the small screens inside the cab I didn’t spot a single sign of civilian life and not a building untouched by months of war.
Khan Younis has witnessed the heaviest fighting in recent weeks – we were the first journalists to get access into the centre of the city since the war began.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) says it has control, but during our time there, gunfire was pretty constant and drones flew low overhead. The battle didn’t seem to be over.
We had been brought by the IDF to see a tunnel network running under the city.
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There were no signs of civilian life in a video feed showing the surrounding area
Deep under Khan Younis, 25 metres down, the narrow tunnels are oppressively hot and narrow, but at times open up into more spacious living quarters with bathrooms, kitchens and sleep areas.
And then something more sinister – a cell with metal bars and door which the IDF says was used to hold hostages.
They claim to have DNA proof three of the released hostages were in here.
A cell which the IDF says was used by Hamas to hold hostages
“If anybody in the world needs evidence for the horrific actions that the terror entity Hamas has done, you’re in it,” says General Dan Goldfuss, commanding officer of the 98th Paratrooper Division that captured the city.
Above ground, fierce gun battles were going on nearby.
Drones flew low overhead and there was the occasional boom of explosions.
There appeared to be no buildings untouched by the months of war
In the dense heart of the city, it was hard to orientate and know how close the fighting was, but the soldiers with us took up positions, their guns pointed down the streets around us.
After four months of fighting, the Israeli military has not yet found many of the tunnels and they have not yet eliminated Hamas.
Sky’s Alistair Bunkall speaks to General Dan Goldfuss from the IDF
‘War is not a pretty sight – my people were killed’
“The Palestinian people here have paid, and are paying, an almighty price for this,” I put it to General Goldfuss.
“They are,” he agreed. “But so am I. I think they should turn their rage towards Hamas.”
But they have nothing to come back to and will turn their rage towards you, I suggested.
“Maybe, maybe they will. But at the end of the day, it’s war up top and it’s war down here,” he replies. “War is not a pretty sight. My people were killed on 7 October 2023, they were slaughtered and burnt. What would Britain do if a terror entity entered Britain?”
Israel promised this would be a war like nothing before. Its forces and politicians vowed to defeat Hamas and bring the hostages home.
The country’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said a ground operation will soon begin in Rafah in the far south – the one remaining urban centre that IDF troops have not yet entered.
It is also where more than a million people have fled to, and one of the last remaining ‘safe zones’, although it comes under regular attack from airstrikes.
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Warnings of ‘catastrophe’ if IDF pushes south
Egypt, worried that there will be an exodus of refugees over the border, has expressed grave concerns about the IDF entering Rafah.
Humanitarian organisations have warned of a catastrophe.
More than 27,000 Palestinians have already been killed since the start of the conflict, at least 16,000 of them estimated to be civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
Still, Israel continues to fight. More than 1,200 people were killed by Hamas in the attacks on 7 October. Hundreds more were taken hostage.
But with Hamas still fighting too, Israel cannot yet claim victory, and time might be running out.
Palestinians hold up their green identity cards as they hope to be let through an Israeli checkpoint
The framework of a new hostage deal has been agreed upon by Israel and is awaiting Hamas’s approval.
If it goes ahead, there could be an extended pause in fighting which Western and Arab nations will want to turn into a permanent ceasefire.
Whenever the end does come, it’s hard to imagine what will be left of Gaza, because I saw what vengeance looks like – almost total destruction.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
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Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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