An Israeli fighter jet. Photo / Getty Images
The stench of death is overpowering from the moment you enter the narrow tunnel.
This is where the leader of Hamas is said to have drawn his last breath, some 8m below Gaza’s European Hospital in the west of Khan Younis.
Mohammed Sinwar was killed here on May 13 in an airstrike, Israel has said.
After facing criticism for civilian deaths during the bombing, the military brought the Telegraph here in an effort to show the attack was part of a precision strike on the terror group.
In a small room off the main tunnel, congealed blood was still visible on the floor beside several dirty mattresses.
Next to a flat-screen television, two Israeli M16 rifles hung on the wall – trophies from the October 7, 2023 incursion and massacre, Israeli officials said.
Today, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) revealed what they claim to be Sinwar’s hiding place in a rare and tightly controlled visit inside Gaza.
One officer described the missile attack that reportedly killed him as “a world-class air strike”.
“We managed to kill a senior terrorist who was hiding under a hospital, without hitting the hospital,” he said.
However, the airstrike drew international condemnation at the time.
It may not have hit the hospital itself but it appeared to have struck just outside the entrance, where patients and their loved ones walked.
Graphic CCTV footage showed bodies flung into the air and rubble showering the area, leaving a large crater behind.
Reports at the time also alleged that the IDF had used aircraft such as quad-copter drones to fire at people rushing to help those caught in the initial blasts.
Until last month, the site had been one of the Gaza Strip’s last functioning major health centres.
The IDF insisted the attack next to the hospital was targeting tunnels, which are consistently built by Hamas near and under civilian infrastructure.
Today, heavily armed units led a small group of journalists – the first Western reporters allowed into Gaza for months – through that tunnel.
We entered through a dark, narrow passage that was stagnant with the smell of human decomposition.
“We had to ventilate it for a few days before allowing anyone down there,” said one soldier.
“When a tunnel system like this collapses and there are dead bodies, gases build up.”
Although they were confident from signals intercepted at the time that they had got their most-wanted target, DNA analysis from a corpse recovered from the site has now removed any doubt of Sinwar’s death.
Israel tested the body against Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed’s older brother and his predecessor as commander of Hamas, who was previously an Israeli prisoner.
The military said it dropped specialist munitions on either side of the hospital, cutting off a roughly 20m section of the tunnel.
Exactly how he died still remains unclear.
Shockwaves from the blasts could easily have killed him, but the section of tunnel appeared curiously intact, with communications wiring and other equipment still in place.
According to one senior officer, he may have suffocated in the hours following the explosions, or even starved.
The IDF released footage today of Sinwar’s corpse shrouded in a white body bag and being dragged out of the tunnel complex by a rope.
It also confirmed the death of Mohammad Sabaneh, the commander of the Rafah Brigade, who was reputed to be the only senior Hamas commander to hold the same post as he did immediately after the October 7 attacks.
Confirmation of Sinwar’s death came as Israel stepped up its offensive in the Strip, enforcing a new seize-and-hold strategy.
This has coincided with the rollout of a controversial new aid delivery system in the south and centre of the territory, designed to break Hamas for good.
During the Telegraph’s visit, the shudder of multiple air strikes – some less than a third of a mile away – proved how much more fighting was left to be done.
General Effie Defrin confirmed that the IDF had fired at individuals converging on the hospital compound following the strike on May 13.
However, he claimed they were Hamas operatives – although provided no evidence.
The general also said that the hospital had been “evacuated” at the time – a claim that would appear to be contradicted by the available video evidence and testimony from those inside, who said it was functioning normally at the time.
He claimed the hospital had been warned prior to the strike.
The controversy surrounding the attack has been symbolic of the growing gulf between Israel and much of the international community, which strongly condemned the May 13 strike.
“We don’t want to be here. It’s Hamas who dragged us here,” the general insisted.
Gaza health officials, who are under the control of Hamas, claimed that 28 people were killed in the strike. But the Health Ministry has been accused of inflating figures and failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians.
However, Israel has not allowed foreign journalists, who may be able to verify or disprove such claims, to operate independently in the Strip.
Israel has said it goes to extensive lengths to avoid civilian deaths, including through the use of intelligence, and has accused Hamas of exploiting residents as human shields.
Although overall figures are difficult to verify, tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in a war whose purpose and strategy has been increasingly questioned by Israeli allies.
The visit to the European Hospital was closely controlled by the Israeli military.
However, it was possible to get a sense of the devastation wrought by the war to the north of the newly created Morag Corridor, an east-west military supply road and artificial boundary within the Strip.
In some neighbourhoods, houses remained standing, although all were riddled with bullet holes.
In other areas, not a single structure remained.
There were untidy heaps of rubble indicative of comprehensive airstrikes, while more organised piles of debris suggested evidence of Israel’s growing practice of demolishing any structure it believes to pose a risk to its troops or be “linked” to Hamas.
Hamas’ coherence as a terror army – its ability to move fighters around and act in a co-ordinated manner – has been largely degraded.
It has meant that its fighters are increasingly operating in small units of two or three.
One Israeli soldier told the Telegraph he had lost a 28-year-old comrade last week, when a lone gunman suddenly emerged and began shooting.
Since Sinwar’s assassination, command of the terror group is believed to have passed to Izz al-Din al-Haddad, who is known as “the ghost” and is the last living of the five brigade commanders from October 7.