How Israel is clearing Hamas out of Rafah

The heat, the sand, the soldiers. I’m in Rafah, a war zone unlike any other. As a former soldier, it’s an unsettling experience. Every time we get out of a vehicle, I reach for a weapon I do not have. Instead of my army fatigues, I’m wearing lightweight trousers, a polo shirt and a blue helmet signifying I’m a civilian guest of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

There’s one thing that hits me more than anything else while I’m here: the damage to Gaza. It is appalling. Almost every building is damaged, and many are destroyed outright. After 7 October, Hamas had to be removed from Gaza. But they aren’t an easy adversary to take on.

There are 500 km of tunnels below Gaza, longer in distance than the entire London underground. In Rafah alone, the 162nd Division, who I’m alongside, have found ten tunnel-hidden rocket launching sites, 21 subterranean weapons production sites, and they have destroyed 200 tunnel entry shafts.