RAFAH, Gaza Strip — two months ago, before Israeli troops invade Rafah, the city was home to the majority of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents. Today it is a ghost town covered in dust.
Abandoned and bullet-riddled apartment buildings have shattered walls and windows. Bedrooms and kitchens are visible from streets strewn with piles of rubble towering over passing Israeli military vehicles. Very few civilians stay.
Israel says it has nearly defeated Hamas forces in Rafah, an area identified earlier this year as The last bastion of the militant group. in Gaza.
The Israeli military invited journalists to Rafah on Wednesday, the first time international media visited Gaza’s southernmost city since its creation. invaded on May 6. Israel has banned international journalists from entering Gaza independently since the Hamas attack on October 7 that sparked the war.
Before invading Rafah, Israel said the four remaining Hamas battalions had withdrawn there, an area of about 25 square miles (65 square kilometers) that borders Egypt. Israel says hundreds of militants have been killed in its Rafah offensive. Dozens of women and children have also been killed by Israeli airstrikes and ground operations.
The military says it has been necessary to operate with such intensity because Hamas turned civilian areas into treacherous traps. Eight soldiers were killed last month by a single explosion.
“Some of these tunnels are booby-trapped,” the military’s top spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said during Wednesday’s tour as he stood next to a shaft that led underground. “Hamas built everything in a civilian neighborhood, between houses, between mosques, among the population, to create its terrorist ecosystem.”
An estimated 1.4 million Palestinians were crammed into Rafah after fleeing fighting elsewhere in Gaza. The UN estimates that around 50,000 people remain in Rafah, which before the war had a population of around 275,000 people.
Most have moved to a nearby “humanitarian zone” declared by Israel, where the conditions are serious. Many have gathered in squalid tent camps along the beach, with little access to clean water, food, toilets and medical care.
Efforts to bring aid to southern Gaza have stalled. Israel’s raid on Rafah closed one of the two main crossings into southern Gaza. The UN says little aid can come in from the other main crossing, Kerem Shalom, because the route is too dangerous and convoys are vulnerable to attacks by armed groups seeking smuggled cigarettes.
On Wednesday, a line of trucks was visible on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, but the trucks were barely moving, a sign of how Israel’s promise to keep the route safe to facilitate aid delivery inside Gaza has failed.
U.N. officials say some commercial trucks have traversed the route to Rafah, but not without hired armed guards riding atop their convoys.
Israel says it is close to dismantling the group as an organized military force in Rafah. Reflecting that trust, soldiers drove journalists in open military vehicles along the highway leading to the heart of the city.
Along the way, debris lying on the side of the road made clear the dangers of delivering aid: dead bodies of trucks lying baking in the sun; boards covered with fences intended to protect drivers; empty aid pallets.
The longer aid deliveries are frozen, humanitarian groups say, the closer Gaza will be to running out of fuel, needed for hospitals, water desalination plants and vehicles.
“Hospitals are once again experiencing fuel shortages, which risks disrupting critical services,” said Dr. Hanan Balkhy, World Health Organization regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean. “Injured people are dying because ambulance services are suffering delays due to fuel shortages.”
As the humanitarian situation worsens, Israel continues its offensive. Fighting in Rafah continues.
After journalists heard gunshots nearby on Wednesday, soldiers told the group they would not visit the beach as planned.
The group left the city soon after, clouds of dust kicked up by vehicles temporarily obscuring the mass of destruction behind them.
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Associated Press reporter Julia Frankel contributed from Jerusalem.
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