At the end of a kilometre-long, booby-trapped tunnel in the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers discovered cramped cells where the military said Hamas kept about 20 hostages.
They found a holding area, five narrow rooms behind metal bars, toilets and mattresses.
They also found drawings by a child hostage freed during the November truce, military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
It, however, did not discover any hostages there.
Israeli soldiers released photos from the underground labyrinth. And it said it brought in journalists to document the tunnel before soldiers would destroy it.
The tunnel entrance, Hagari said, was in the house of a Hamas member in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
Israel has been focusing its fight in Khan Younis in Gaza City in recent weeks against the Palestinian fighters group.
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“The soldiers entered the tunnel where they encountered terrorists, engaging in a battle that ended with the elimination of the terrorists,” Hagari said.
“The tunnel was rigged with blast doors and explosives, he said.
“According to testimonies we have, Hamas held about 20 hostages in this tunnel at different times under harsh conditions without daylight, in terrible humidity that makes breathing difficult,” he said.
Some of the hostages kept there were freed during the week-long Qatari-mediated truce.
Others are among the more than 130 captured during Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage through southern Israel that are still in Gaza. (Reuters)
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