Inside Gaza, BBC sees total devastation after two years of war

You can’t hide what this war is doing from a set overlooking Gaza City.

Gaza, filled with maps and memories, is gone, replaced by a monochrome landscape of rubble stretching 180 degrees flat and motionless, from Beit Hanoun on one side to Gaza City on the other.

Beyond the distant shapes of the buildings still standing inside Gaza City, there is almost nothing left to direct you here or to identify neighborhoods that once housed tens of thousands of people.

This was one of the first areas that Israeli ground troops entered in the first weeks of the war. They have since returned multiple times as Hamas regrouped around its strongholds in the region.

Israel does not allow news organizations to report independently from Gaza. Today, a group of journalists, including the BBC, were taken to the area of ​​the Strip occupied by Israeli forces.

The brief visit was highly controlled, with no access to Palestinians or other parts of Gaza.

Military censorship laws in Israel mean that our materials are shown to military personnel before publication. The BBC maintained editorial control of this report at all times.

Asked about the level of destruction in the area we visited, Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said it was “not a goal.”

“The aim is to fight terrorists. Almost every house had a tunnel shaft, booby trap or RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] or sniper station,” he said.

“If you’re driving fast, you could be inside the living room of an Israeli grandmother or her child within a minute. That’s what happened on October 7.”

More than 1,100 people died and 251 people were taken hostage in the attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023.

More than 68,000 Gazans have been killed since then, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

Lieutenant Colonel Shoshani said that many hostage bodies were found in this area: Including Itay Chen’sHe was extradited to Israel by Hamas this week. The search for the missing bodies of the other seven hostages continues.

The Israeli military base we went to is a few hundred meters away from the yellow line – the temporary border. US President Donald Trump’s peace planThe area that separates areas in Gaza still controlled by Israeli forces from areas controlled by Hamas.

The Israeli army is gradually marking the yellow line with blocks on the ground as a warning to both Hamas fighters and civilians.

There is no demarcation line along this part of the line yet; a soldier points this out to me, taking his bearings from a small patch of sand among the gray crumbs of collapsed buildings.

Almost a month after the ceasefire, Israeli forces say they are still fighting Hamas gunmen along the yellow line “almost every day.” Stacks of bronze-coloured bullet casings mark firing points on embankments overlooking Gaza City.

Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire “hundreds of times” and Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said more than 240 people had been killed as a result.

Colonel Shoshani said Israeli forces are committed to the US-led peace plan, but will also ensure that Hamas no longer poses a threat to Israeli civilians and remains there for as long as necessary.

“It is very clear to everyone that Hamas is armed and trying to control Gaza,” he said. “This is something that will be solved, but we are a long way from that.”

The next phase of the US-led plan calls for Hamas to disarm and hand over power to a Palestinian committee overseen by international figures including President Trump.

But Col Shoshani said that instead of giving up its power and weapons, Hamas did the opposite.

“Hamas is trying to arm itself, to dominate and gain control over Gaza,” he told me. “This is killing people in broad daylight to terrorize civilians and make them understand who is boss in Gaza. We hope this agreement is enough pressure to get Hamas to disarm.”

Israeli forces showed us a map of the tunnels that soldiers said they found under the rubble we saw, “a vast network of tunnels that almost looked like a spider web.” Some have already been destroyed, some are still intact, and some are still being sought.

It is unclear what will happen in the next phase of this peace agreement.

The agreement left Gaza in a state of tense uncertainty. Washington knows how sensitive the situation is; The ceasefire has already been broken twice.

The United States is striving to move from this volatile situation toward a more lasting peace. It sent members of the UN Security Council a draft resolution, seen by the BBC, outlining a two-year mandate for an international stabilization force to take over security in Gaza and disarm Hamas.

But details of the next phase of the agreement are thin: It is not clear which countries will send troops to secure Gaza before Hamas disarms, when Israeli troops will withdraw, or how members of Gaza’s new technocratic administration will be appointed.

President Trump outlined his vision for Gaza to become a futuristic Middle Eastern hub built with foreign investment. It is a far cry from where Gaza is today.

Largely destroyed by Israel and seen as an investment by Trump, the question is not only who can stop the war, but also how much say Gazans will have over the future of their communities and land.