As the Israeli armoured personnel carrier clatters across Gaza, the only glimpse I get of the decimated hellscape outside comes through two tiny video screens.
Everything is flattened; everything destroyed. So many buildings have been levelled in this bloody war that vast mounds of pulverized concrete litter the landscape and mix in the Mediterranean breeze with grit, dirt and filth.
It seeps into every crevice, penetrating even the IDF vehicle’s armour, and clings to the throat leaving me choking and gasping for air.
But I don’t have time to catch my breath – we have arrived. The armour-plated rear hatch yawns open and I now see Gaza City with my own eyes.
I am one of a handful of journalists allowed into the Strip’s capital for the first time since Israel launched its ground offensive in September.
We are here, embedded with the military, principally because the IDF discovered the entrance to a 1.5km tunnel and weapons manufacturing factory within the Jordanian Hospital and wish to show it to the world’s media before destroying it.
It is tunnels like this – forming part of an underground labyrinth which stretches for longer than the London tube network – that the Israeli government say is in large part why so much of Gaza has been reduced to dust.
How else, they say, can they root out such a cynical foe which hides within civilian infrastructure, attacking them at any time from above and below ground, before slipping away? Some 1,000 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, 2023.
I am one of a handful of journalists allowed into the Strip’s capital for the first time since Israel launched its ground offensive in September, writes Natalie Lisbona (pictured)
We are here, embedded with the military, principally because the IDF discovered a 1.5km tunnel and weapons manufacturing factory underneath the Jordanian Hospital (pictured) and wish to show it to the world’s media before destroying it
An Israeli army soldier behind a mounted machine gun in the vicinity of the Jordanian Field Hospital in Gaza City
A photo taken while embedded with the Israeli Army and cleared by Israeli military censors shows damaged and destroyed buildings in the vicinity of the Jordanian Field Hospital in Gaza City
Much of the world argues that with tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, around two million displaced and nearly no building left unscathed, there must be another way.
Here though, on the ground, such debate feels painfully academic.
While the world holds its breath following Hamas’s positive response to Donald Trump’s proposal to end the war, in Gaza City every day it is still life and death.
If barely 30 minutes ago I was in Israel, now, after first being whisked into the enclave in a Humvee before switching into the APC, I am on another planet.
We are told to head to a building a few hundred yards from us, and sharply – for the bombed-out high rises surrounding us may be teeming with Hamas snipers.
Just the day before two terrorists armed with RPG’s breached this zone. They were shot dead. And two weeks prior a member of the 36th Battalion which is escorting us was killed within 500 metres of where we stand.
I walk briskly across the open ground, reaching what appeared to be one of the many abandoned apartment blocks in this city which was once home to over half a million.
Balaclava-clad special forces appear and haul me across the rubble inside with them. ‘Up! Up! Up!’ they yell, urging us to ascend the stairs away from the exposed entrance.
An excavator digging the soil in front of war-destroyed or damaged buildings in the vicinity of the Jordanian Field Hospital in Gaza City
It is tunnels like this – forming part of an underground labyrinth which stretches for longer than the London tube network – that the Israeli government say is in large part why so much of Gaza has been reduced to dust. Pictured: The Jordanian Hospital in Gaza
If barely 30 minutes’ ago I was in Israel, now, after first being whisked into the enclave in a Humvee before switching into the APC, I am on another planet. Pictured: Reporter Natalie Lisbona inside Israeli armoured vehicle on the way to Gaza City on Friday, October 3, 2025
Israeli army tanks and armoured personnel carriers stationed amid damaged buildings in the vicinity of the Jordanian Field Hospital in Gaza City
An Israeli army tank maneuvring at a position in the vicinity of the Jordanian Field Hospital in Gaza City
In the debris, I see the forgotten items of those who once lived here. A hairbrush. A rollerskate. A little sports jumper.
We are ordered up. I mount two flights of stairs, panting under the weight of our body armour and stifling heat.
Suddenly all around me are masked men. At least 50. All special forces, here to protect us. TV screens and monitors surround us.
As I gather my bearings, I am drawn to the room next door. I look up and on the ceiling is the only relic of those who lived here before. A large pink butterfly stretching across the ceiling.
What is now a bullet-ridden shell was once a little girl’s room, I think.
I wonder where she is now. Is she safe? I want to cry and scream with anger at how the war Hamas sparked has destroyed the lives of so many ordinary people. So many children are missing – or dead.
‘Stay away from the window,’ I am told. ‘There are snipers.’ I step back.
We are shown the view of the Jordanian Hospital, the subject of our visit, which until recently was one of just two functioning hospitals in Gaza City, say the IDF.
Israeli army soldiers walking toward a tank at a position in the vicinity of the Jordanian Field Hospital in Gaza City
We are shown the view of the Jordanian Hospital (pictured), the subject of our visit, which until recently was one of just two functioning hospitals in Gaza City, say the IDF
We are lowered back down the apartment and move swiftly back into the APC which rumbles out of Gaza City. Pictured: Reporter Natalie Lisbona on the way back from Gaza City on Friday, October 3, 2025
It is too dangerous for us to go in person, so a drone is sent in from our position to show us the tunnel shaft.
‘This is a civilian hospital that Hamas used during the war, knowing we won’t attack,’ a security official, who cannot be named, tells us. ‘They were inside with the Jordanians until last week.’
He estimates that there are just a few thousand terrorists left in Gaza City and that they are recruiting youngsters to fill their ranks.
‘Hamas has now moved north and south with their families,’ he says. ‘Our challenge now is the snipers and IEDS [Improvised Explosive Devices], RPG and long range rockets.’
The drone is sent in. As it takes to the sky, in the corner of the screen there is the unmistakable outline of people moving between buildings.
Some of the 200,000 who, unbelievably, have ignored the evacuation orders and stayed in this deserted wasteland.
The UAV flies past them and we watch in real time on two screens as it descends into the hospital. On another screen we are shown army footage deep inside the tunnel which, we are told, leads to a factory used for research and development of precision missiles.
Released hostages have reported Hamas hid them inside hospitals just like this.
Rubble piled up in front of the damaged Jordanian Field Hospital in Gaza City
As I am jostled back across the border in the Humvee, my mind is cast back to the images, almost exactly two years ago, of the hostages being dragged across this very fence and in so doing sparking this bloody conflict. Pictured: Reporter Natalie Lisbona dropped off by the APV from Gaza City and now waiting for Humvee to the Israeli side on Friday, October 3, 2025
I ask if any have been held there and am told they have not been able to ascertain that yet.
‘One of the main reasons we are here is for the hostages,’ a security official tells me. ‘Six of them are my soldiers in the 36th division. It’s one of our goals to bring them back.’
It haunts me to think how close we are to the 48 hostages. Twenty of them are still alive, held somewhere in this city after two years of unimaginable torture. Could I be walking above their heads right now?
We are lowered back down the apartment and move swiftly back into the APC which rumbles out of Gaza City.
As I am jostled back across the border in the Humvee, my mind is cast back to the images, almost exactly two years ago, of the hostages being dragged across this very fence and in so doing sparking this bloody conflict. I pray there is a deal soon to end this misery.
The thought of them underneath me today, and of that little girl with the butterfly bedroom, cling to me like the Gaza dust in my hair, on my clothes, and in my throat.
