Inside the underground complex where Israel says Hamas held hostages

The thick, humid air inside the tunnel smells like sewage. The walls are slimy and feel like they are closing in. When the light goes out, the darkness is total.

Within this labyrinth of tunnels beneath Khan Younis is a narrow room with an arched ceiling, divided in half by a gate of metal bars. The musty room, which looks like a makeshift cell, is where the Israeli military says Hamas held at least 12 of the hostages kidnapped and taken to Gaza on October 7.

Israel says it made this assessment based on testimonies from freed hostages and forensic evidence, including DNA. Some were among those released during the lull in hostilities in late November, military officials said. A CNN could not independently confirm Israel's account, but the details match descriptions in Israeli media of hostages claimed to have been detained there.

In the subterranean darkness, the wreckage above seems remote and a silent horror fills the void. Any hostage held here would have a limited sense of time or place. Minutes feel like hours and, after a few turns at different points, it's impossible not to feel disoriented. The place is hot and very humid. Its tiled walls and floors are wet with condensation. The air feels heavy, as if the oxygen is running out.

Israel says Hamas has built a vast network of compounds like this one, linked by tunnels and deep underground shafts. The southern city of Khan Younis, which Israel considers one of the group's “main strongholds,” is the current epicenter of the fighting.

A CNN was among a small group of reporters who received a military escort from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to see two interconnected tunnel complexes, including the room where the Israelis say the hostages were held, in the central part of the city. The IDF showed similar complexes to the media in eastern Khan Younis. The group was accompanied by one of the IDF's top commanders, Brigadier General Dan Goldfuss.

During the visit, Goldfuss told CNN that the tunnel system stretches across much of the Gaza Strip and was used by Hamas to plan and execute the deadly October 7 terrorist attack.

“They spent years and years building, this is not a two-year project, it is years of planning. So if anyone asks how long October 7th was planned, I say for many years,” he said, adding that he feels some responsibility for Israel’s vulnerability to Hamas attacks. “I failed to defend my people, as a general.”

As a condition of entering Gaza under IDF escort, media outlets must send raw photos and videos to the Israeli military for review before publication. The IDF has not reviewed this written report.

International media have had access to the track blocked since the start of the war. A CNN agreed to the terms to provide a rare view of Gaza during the war, as Israel tries to find the remaining hostages and pushes further south into areas where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled.

More than 250 people were taken hostage during the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack in southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli officials. More than 27,000 Palestinians were killed and 66,000 injured, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, in Israel's aerial bombardment and ground attack on the strip, which leveled entire neighborhoods, including this one.

A journalist from CNN entered the tunnel network through a basement wall now entirely exposed by a giant crater, the area surrounded by destroyed multi-story residential buildings.

The IDF said three hostages – Sahar Calderon, Or Yaakov, both 16, and Sapir Cohen, 29 – were released from that location during the ceasefire that was part of an Israel-Hamas hostage agreement in late November. The three were kidnapped in Nir Oz, a kibbutz community near Israel's border with Gaza.

A CNN was unable to independently verify whether they were held at the complex or for how long. But Hamas propaganda videos showed hostages in similar confined spaces with tiled walls.

More than 100 Israeli and foreign hostages were released during the truce, and Palestinians held in Israeli prisons were released in return. Israel believes that 132 hostages are still being held in Gaza, in compounds like the one the CNN was escorted under Khan Younis.

In late January, Israeli forces intensified their offensive in Khan Younis, where medical facilities and other buildings housing displaced civilians were destroyed, causing mass casualties, according to the United Nations. The IDF said its operations in Khan Younis were aimed at dismantling Hamas' “military structure and strongholds” and used the tunnels as justification for demolishing large swathes of territory.

Palestinian health officials and paramedics also reported Israeli tanks and attack drones firing at people trying to flee the vicinity of two hospitals in Khan Younis, where the Hamas-run health ministry said Israeli forces had cut off medical, food and fuel supplies. essential. The IDF claims that Hamas militants are using hospitals in the area for military purposes.

Underground labyrinth

Inside the underground complex, the shafts are cramped. The connecting passages between rooms are high enough to stand in and so narrow that two people passing through cannot avoid physical contact. Some of the tunnels are ankle-deep in mud.

At other points, the floor slopes up and down, the depth varying between 15 and 25 meters below the surface, according to the IDF, which said the section of tunnels visited by the CNN it stretched for about a kilometer.

Goldfuss said the IDF believes Hamas leaders, including its top official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, hid in that compound under Khan Younis while Israel launched its military response to the Oct. 7 attack. At some point during the IDF's ground operation, this section of the network was redesigned to hold hostages, Goldfuss said, pointing to the cage-shaped gate that appears to be a more recent addition.

A CNN was unable to verify these claims, or any others made by Goldfuss, about who may have been hiding in the maze or what its original purpose was.

What became clear during the visit to CNN is that the location has been used for a long period of time. Discarded trash, empty food and drink containers, dirty blankets and random articles of clothing are scattered around. In a kitchen with basic equipment, dirty dishes are discarded in the sink.

And yet some thought was put into the interior design. The rooms are adorned with tiles more suited to a home than a militant group's underground compound. In the kitchen, the tiles are painted with bowls of eggs and cucumbers, baskets of flowers and pots marked, in English, as “flour”, “biscuits” and “cereals”.

“You can see it in the kitchen; they even took the time to feel at home here. The initial objective of this tunnel was not to sequester here, it was a strategic tunnel, there is a bathroom, there is a maintenance tunnel, the managers spent time here”, stated Goldfuss.

Emerging from the underground complex reveals the enormous destruction caused by the Israeli military. Goldfuss said that in the place where aa CNN accessed the tunnel through a huge crater and other shafts spread like a spider's web across the neighborhood, there was a building. The devastation is immense – nothing is left of the original structure; its remains were demolished to expose the tunnel entrance.

Similar devastation can be seen throughout the surrounding residential area. Most of the buildings had holes instead of windows, giving them a dollhouse appearance. On several balconies, clothes hanging to dry still swayed in the winter breeze. Books and personal belongings were scattered among the rubble. None of the buildings looked habitable and there was no one in sight.