Rafah In Ruins: Witnessing The Aftermath Of Conflict In Gaza

Thick clouds of dirt and sand fill the air as our convoy of Humvees arrives in Rafah. This is the first time international reporters have been allowed in since the Israeli military launched its ground assault on this city two months ago.

As the dust settles, the scale of destruction is startling yet all-too familiar.

This part of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city and the last refuge for over a million Palestinians earlier in the war, is now unrecognizable.

Israel has described its ground operation in Rafah as “limited.” However, the destruction here mirrors what I’ve seen in northern Gaza, central Gaza, and Khan Younis during previous trips with the Israeli military.

Some homes are flattened and other buildings bombed out.

“This is where the main destruction is because it was booby-trapped and because the tunnels were booby-trapped,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the IDF’s top spokesman, tells me when I question him on how this represents a “limited” operation.

“And when you see destruction, it’s because either the houses were booby-trapped, either when we demolished a tunnel the houses fell apart, or Hamas fired from those houses and risked our forces, and we had no other method but to ensure our forces' safety,” Hagari adds.

Other parts of Rafah are not nearly as devastated, he says. But CNN cannot independently verify his claims: Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza independently, and our only access is via embeds with the Israeli military. This devastated section of Rafah is where they have brought us.

The Israeli military has brought us here not to see the destruction, but to explain why they launched an offensive, what they’ve uncovered, and what they’ve accomplished.

Before arriving in Rafah, we drive along the Gaza-Egypt border, through the Philadelphi corridor. The area was seized by the Israeli military, which says it has uncovered dozens of tunnel shafts and rocket launchers used to fire rockets into Israel. Hagari shows us one tunnel shaft, which he says stretches about 90 feet (28 meters) underground.

The Israeli military claims Hamas has used the Philadelphi corridor to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza. Hagari says some tunnels stretch toward Egypt, but he cannot yet definitively say whether those tunnels were functional and used for smuggling. Egypt denies any tunnels stretch into its territory from Gaza.

“We are researching those tunnels carefully and making sure which ones were functional and which are not anymore because maybe they were – from the Egyptian side – stopped,” Hagari says.

He won't say exactly how long Israeli forces will need to occupy this corridor, but it could be weeks or months.

Hagari also claims Israeli forces killed more than 900 Hamas fighters in Rafah and are close to defeating Hamas’s Rafah brigade. However, how many militants have escaped and might regroup once Israeli forces leave is uncertain. Absent a long-term strategy or an alternative to Hamas governance in Gaza, Hamas has already started regrouping in other areas from which Israeli forces had previously withdrawn.

As for the Rafah ground operation, Hagari cannot confirm if it will be the last in Gaza.

“I won’t say that because what you will see is when we’ll have intelligence that maybe there are hostages in one of the points in Gaza, we will operate and do a raid. If we get intelligence that Hamas terrorists are preparing an attack against Israelis or our forces, we will do a raid and attack,” Hagari says. “This is what you’ll see.”