War between Israel and Hamas: Israel brings reporters to the battle zone in Gaza

The wall of a school was shattered into rubble. The minaret of a mosque tilted to one side. The roof of a beachside villa was gone, leaving a maroon sofa exposed to the elements.

Along Gaza’s northern coastline on Saturday afternoon there were signs of a battle between Hamas, the Palestinian militia that controls the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli army, which had spent eight days trying to oust Hamas from power.

Israeli military leaders brought a small group of foreign journalists to northern Gaza for four hours on Saturday to witness the scale of the advance. Among them was a reporter from The New York Times.

Thousands of troops began their incursion along the coastline on October 27, as part of a three-pronged invasion force aimed at defeating Hamas, which led a brutal attack on Israel last month that killed around 1,400 people.

Eight days later, the Israeli army pushed its way several kilometers south, reaching the outskirts of Gaza City, Hamas’ stronghold, and establishing control over the northern section of Gaza’s coastal road.

Less than a month ago, Gaza’s northern coastline was a quiet stretch of coastline, dotted here and there with beach resorts and hotels. On Saturday it was a gigantic Israeli military camp.

Long lines of infantry marched along the road south, blowing plumes of dust into the air. In the sand dunes east of the road, long lines of tanks and armored vehicles dominated the landscape, stretching to the horizon.

Many buildings were destroyed and the walls were sprayed with bullet holes. Some were most likely hit from the air during an Israeli bombing campaign that killed more than 9,000 Gazans, according to the Gaza Health Authority, which is controlled by Hamas.

Palestinian residents had fled south, leaving the coast to Israeli soldiers and a few stray dogs and cats.

An Israeli officer accompanying the journalists, Lt. Col. Iddo Ben-Anat, projected an image of quiet confidence.

Hamas had fled here, the colonel said, and had been driven from its bases in the mosque with the tilting minaret and the school with the shattered wall.

“It’s like catching a mouse,” Colonel Ben-Anat said of the enemy. ‘You have to find him. You know he’s there. You don’t know where he is, but you know if you catch him, he’s done.

Nearby, groups of soldiers gathered around portable camping stoves, cooking sweet corn and carrots, chatting and joking. Several people wore well-groomed mustaches – an incongruous nod to Movember, an annual global fundraising campaign in which men grow their mustaches throughout the month of November.

All the political divisions in Israel over the past year – during which thousands of military reservists had threatened to refuse to serve in protest against the Israeli government – had disappeared, the colonel said. Many of his men were reservists.

“United, together,” said Colonel Ben-Anat.

But these displays of bravado were drowned out by the sounds of an unfinished and undecided war.

Even as some soldiers cooked and rested, others drew their guns and scanned the horizon for attackers. The colonel said Hamas fighters could at any moment emerge from hidden shafts leading to a vast underground tunnel network hundreds of miles away and ambush Israeli forces.

There was constant gunfire and ammunition regularly flying overhead.

Shortly after the journalists entered Gaza through a hole in the wall along its perimeter, a mortar shell landed close to the armored vehicle carrying them south.

A few minutes later, a roadside bomb exploded as the vehicle passed, creating a brief fireball and sending sand into the air.

A new barrage of mortar shells landed near the journalists after they moved closer to the front line.

To reach the front, the journalists drove in a convoy of five tanks and two armored vehicles. A reporter for The Times traveled in an armored vehicle known as an Eitan. There were no windows: to see his surroundings, the driver looked at a digital screen showing a live video of the road ahead.

Palestinian journalists have not enjoyed this protection; According to the US Air Force, dozens have been killed in air strikes since the start of the war Committee to Protect Journalists.

To really rout Hamas, Israel will have to conquer all of Gaza, the colonel said.

Bloodier fighting awaits the Israelis in Gaza City, where Hamas fighters have holed up in their underground fortifications and are believed to be planning many more ambushes.

Analysts say such fighting could cause catastrophic civilian casualties – an outcome Israel says it is trying to avoid.

“We are doing our best to destroy Hamas alone, without harming civilians,” Colonel Ben-Anat said. “We will think ten times before we do anything.”

But for the civilians in Gaza City, who witnessed one of the most intense bombardments of the 21st century, the Israeli army’s approach is terrifying.

Saher Abu Adgham, 37, a Palestinian graphic designer, searched the streets of Gaza City for firewood to cook some rice. As dusk approached, he went home to bed in case the army advanced at nightfall.

“I’m afraid of going out one night and encountering a tank,” Mr. Abu Adgham said in a telephone interview.

With mobile networks often out of service, other residents of Gaza City tried to assess the Israeli advance by listening to the sound of the gunfire.

“We don’t have the internet to listen to the news and know what’s happening – but we can hear it,” said Majdi Ahmed, 32, a taxi driver seeking shelter in a hospital in the city.

“Now I can hear the shooting,” Mr. Ahmed said in a voice message. “It looks like they’re fighting now.”

Iyad Abuheweila contributed reporting from Cairo, Abu Bakr Bashir from London and Patrick Kingsley from Jerusalem.