GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli army vehicle rumbles through the empty streets of a shattered neighborhood in Gaza City, and with help from a video camera, a soldier spots people standing inside a blasted out nearby building. The armored personal carrier revs its engine and moves on.
A little further along, the vehicle stops near an empty hospital formerly overseen by the Jordanian government. A senior official speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military rules says soldiers recently found a tunnel used by Hamas adjacent to the hospital.
On Friday, the Israeli military escorted international journalists through Gaza City, the focus of a new offensive to root out Hamas, offering a rare – and limited — glimpse into the territory devastated by nearly two years of war and where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed.
In August, international experts said the city was in a famine and warned that Israel’s offensive and mass displacement of people would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis.
The soldiers escorting the journalists through Gaza City portrayed their military operations as deliberate, to minimize harm to civilians – yet justified, to eliminate a militant group that has been severely weakened but remains dug in, capable of carrying out attacks and still in possession of 48 hostages.
Israel has for two years banned international journalists from entering Gaza, except for rare, brief visits supervised by the military, such as this one.
A city under siege
The drive into and out of Gaza City was through the Netzarim corridor, which separates northern and southern Gaza and is used as a military zone. The route was littered with destroyed buildings and mounds of concrete. Few signs of life were seen during the tour, which lasted several hours.
Once in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood, the army took journalists to a lookout point several hundred meters away from the deserted Jordanian hospital. The army said Hamas had been making weapons in a room beneath the hospital while the Jordanians were aboveground, in control of the health care facility — one of many struggling to operate in recent weeks as Israeli attacks intensified.
Surrounded by destruction and collapsed buildings, the hospital shut down about two weeks ago. What appeared to be a tube extended from one of its buildings into a mound of dirt in front of it, which soldiers said was where the tunnel was located. A few hundred feet away, excavators moved piles of sand, as the sound of gunfire and artillery reverberated in the background.
Of Gaza’s 36 hospitals, 22 are no longer operational and the remaining 14 are only partially functional, according to the World Health Organization.
Israel accuses Hamas of using health facilities as command centers and for military purposes, putting civilians in harm’s way, though it has presented little evidence. Hamas security personnel have been seen in hospitals and have kept some areas inaccessible.
A soldier showed journalists videos taken from a drone that flew through the 1.5 km (1 mile) long tunnel. The video showed narrow tunnels that led to rooms, one which showed explosives lined against the wall.
A Jordanian official speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter denied that its hospital was being used by Hamas. The AP could not independently verify the Israeli army’s claims.
A few hundred meters from the Jordanian hospital, soldiers with the 36th division were positioned in a house they say had previously been used by Hamas. Shards of glass and concrete blanketed the floor, wires hung from the ceiling and on the walls were handwritten instructions in Hebrew about being on duty.
Soldiers warned journalists not to stand too close to the windows because of snipers. A day earlier, the building beside the house was hit by sniper fire, one soldier said.
The fate of Gaza City
On the eve of the war, Gaza City was home to roughly 1 million people. Throughout the conflict, it has been the focus of regular Israeli bombardment and ground operations. Several neighborhoods have been almost completely destroyed. Hundreds of thousands fled under Israeli evacuation orders at the start of the war but many returned during a ceasefire earlier this year.
Before their latest campaign in Gaza City began last month, Israel warned Palestinians to evacuate south. Earlier this week, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said people had one last chance to go, and that anyone left behind would be considered a Hamas supporter.
The senior army official leading the journalists’ through Gaza City on Friday was more measured, however.
“We’re trying every day to explain how much safer it is to go down to the south,” the senior official said. “And when we get closer to areas with a lot of population, we stop and we try with other means to get them out of this area.”
While hundreds of thousands have left, many have remained, some unable to afford to move, others too weak to leave or not wanting to be displaced once again.
Trump’s proposed deal to end the war
After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and abducting 251, Israel launched a retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 67, 000 Palestinians. That number is according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says women and children make up around half the dead.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and the U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.
Israel’s army said Saturday that it would advance preparations for the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war and return all the remaining hostages, after Hamas said it accepted parts of the deal and that others still needed to be negotiated.
The army will move to a defensive position rather than an offensive one, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media on the record.
Still, it’s unclear how that will affect people in Gaza City. On Saturday, the army warned Palestinians in the rest of Gaza from returning there, calling it a dangerous combat zone.
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Associated Press reporters Omar Akour in Amman, Jordan, Samy Magdy in Cairo, Egypt, and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed.
