The Israeli military brings foreign journalists to Rafah to prove a success in the war against Hamas.

Rafah, southern Gaza Strip — A CBS News team was among the first foreign journalists allowed to visit the devastated southern Gaza town of Rafah since Israel began its military ground assault against Hamas there in early May. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the operation despite warnings from the United States and other Israeli allies, who expressed serious concerns about the danger to civilians who had sought refuge in the town during the previous seven months of war.

At the end of May, at least two weeks after the start of Israeli ground operations in the city, the United Nations reported that about one million Palestinians had fled Rafah – many of them had already been displaced at least once before.

CBS News journalists in Gaza, led by producer Marwan al-Ghoul, reported on the war since the operation began – bringing the world images and stories of the devastating impact on civilians. But Wednesday’s visit was the first glimpse foreign television crews had of the operation in Rafah and its aftermath.

CBS News was driven by the Israel Defense Forces to southern Gaza in a convoy of open-top Israeli Humvees.

IDF: Underground “terror ecosystem” uncovered

Israeli forces wanted to show foreign media what they had achieved in Rafah, including the discovery of what they called a “terror ecosystem” – an underground labyrinth of tunnels that militants had built beneath the city. Military officials said some of the tunnels connected Hamas militia territory in Gaza with Egypt across the Palestinian enclave’s southern border.

Israel has long viewed smuggling along this route as a vital survival route for Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel and the European Union for years.

Israeli forces said they discovered hundreds of houses in the city that had been booby-trapped by insurgents and killed more than 900 insurgents during their operations in Rafah.

The city is believed to have been the last major stronghold of Hamas, which ruled Gaza for nearly 20 years before sparking the ongoing war with its unprecedented terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. In that attack, the militants killed about 1,200 people and took about 240 others hostage, of whom about 80 are believed to be still alive and held captive in Gaza.

According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, Israel’s retaliatory war has killed nearly 38,000 people, most of them women and children, and destroyed much of the infrastructure in the Palestinian territory, which was home to an estimated 2.3 million people before the war.

According to CBS News reports, there is virtually no one left in Rafah, a city that was full of internally displaced people just a month and a half ago.

Destruction of indescribable proportions

The extent of the destruction in Rafah cannot be put into words. The images that CBS News captured with its camera speak for themselves. It has become a desert landscape.

Aside from a row of empty trucks carrying aid and their drivers, the only things to be seen in Rafah were IDF forces. A few stray cats and an emaciated dog wandered sadly among the rubble.

CBS News heard heavy small arms fire during the visit, much of it apparently from Israeli troops still operating in the city.

The destruction of infrastructure in Rafah was even worse than what CBS News witnessed 2017 in the destroyed Syrian cities of Mosul and Raqqah during the War against ISIS.

Israel’s Netanyahu insists on “destruction of Hamas”

Israel Defense Forces chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, speaking to reporters in the ruins of Rafah as gunfire rang out, said the military’s work in the city was far from over.

Israel began operations in Gaza just hours after the October 7 Hamas attack. In the days that followed, Netanyahu was unequivocal about his goals, vowing in televised addresses to destroy Hamas and warning that every member of the group was “a dead man.”

But after nearly nine months of fighting and the destruction of vast swathes of the Gaza Strip, many Hamas leaders remain at large, including their top commander in the enclave, Yahya Sinwar.

Many people, including some Israelis, believe that destroying Hamas, or even depriving it of its ability to take over the government and conduct its own military operations, could take years. It may even be impossible.

Hagari himself said on Israeli television a few weeks ago: “Anyone who thinks we can eliminate Hamas is mistaken.” And anyone who wants to make the Israeli people believe that this is an achievable mission is “simply pulling the wool over the public’s eyes.”

In the midst of the Signs of a separation The New York Times on Tuesday quoted anonymous Israeli commanders who had advocated a ceasefire and who spoke with Netanyahu and the Israeli military about the goals of the war and post-war plans in the Gaza Strip.

The newspaper quoted Israeli generals as saying they were running out of ammunition and were concerned they would be overwhelmed if the war escalated into a tandem war. Conflict with Hamas ally Hezbollahstationed across Israel’s northern border in Lebanon. The Times said the generals believed a ceasefire was the best way to bring the remaining Israeli hostages home – and that a ceasefire should be sought regardless of whether the government’s stated goals were met.

Netanyahu fired back at the allegations on Tuesday, saying he did not know “who these anonymous sources are, but I am here to make it unequivocally clear: That will not happen. The war will end once Israel has achieved all of its goals, including the destruction of Hamas and the release of all our hostages.”

In recent weeks, there have been numerous reports of Hamas fighters fleeing the ruins of Rafah, along with the exodus of Palestinian civilians. What has been destroyed in Rafah is the city itself, like every other major population center that existed in Gaza before October 7.