CNN goes inside a compound deep under the besieged southern city, where the Israeli military says Hamas held hostages. Much of the surrounding residential area has been destroyed.

‘Just horrific’: CNN producer describes being in room where hostages were held

Inside this maze of tunnels under Khan Younis, there is a narrow room with an arched ceiling, divided in half by a barred metal gate. The musty chamber, which looks like a makeshift cell, is where the Israeli military says Hamas held at least 12 of the hostages kidnapped and brought to Gaza on October 7.

“They spent years and years building it, this is not a two-year project, this is years of planning. So, if anyone asks how long was October 7 being planned, I say for many years,” he said

Goldfuss said a building once stood where CNN accessed the tunnel through a huge crater and other shafts spread like a spiderweb through the neighborhood. The devastation is immense – nothing was left of the original structure; its remnants having been bulldozed away to expose the tunnel entrance.

Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20240208173404/https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/07/middleeast/gaza-underground-compound-israel-hamas-intl-cmd/index.html

  • @johker216
    6•9 months ago

    Which is more likely for underground tunnels that don’t hold many people and are kitted for permanent subterranean living:

    1. a safe place for a terrorist organization’s leadership and inner circle to plan attacks with the easy ability to traverse the city unknown
    2. temporary bomb shelters for the population of Gaza

    At what point will people, who bend over backwards to defend a designated terrorist organization who exclusively target civilians, admit that the conflict is more complicated than “Israel bad” - when Hamas revives indiscriminate bus bombings of Israelis (or do they pine for the 90s/2000s again)? Netanhanyu needs to go, but Hamas doesn’t even try to distinguish between military targets and civilians - all Israelis are military targets (genocide). The victims in this conflict are Palestinian and Israeli civilians and this needs to not be forgotten in their haze of Israeli bloodlust.

    • @givesomefucksEnglish
      9•9 months ago

      If the IDF wants people to believe them, they shouldn’t have spent decades lying

      They have zero credibility, and even without past history, they’re committing a genocide right now as we speak

      • @johker216
        4•9 months ago

        And what Hamas is trying to accomplish is also genocide - but this is all besides the point. The larger question is this: what would it take for you to believe even a fraction of what the Israeli military claims?

        Can it be true that the IDF is indiscriminately killing Palestinian civilians as well as telling the truth?

        Would you claim that Hamas is justified in their killing of civilians if the Israeli military also kills civilians?

        Even further: what happens if all foreign governments stop sending aid to Israel and Lebanon/Hamas/etc. attack Israeli citizens with the intent of purging them? Would you suddenly support the IDF in it’s struggle to protect Israeli citizens from these groups who have already made it clear that their primary purpose is the genocide of the Jews in the Levant?

        Regardless of anyone’s feelings on the IDF, it is incumbent on all of us to take the claims of Hamas and Israel with a massive grain of salt - you may not believe in the credibility of the IDF but you certainly cannot dismiss the engrained antisemitism of Hamas and others in the region and believe them at face value.