Soldiers Deny Former Defense Minister’s Claim That Israel Faked Gaza Tunnel Photo To Delay Hostage Deal

The Israeli government deliberately misrepresented the nature of a tunnel in Gaza’s Philadelphi Corridor to derail a hostage deal with Hamas, according to a former Israeli defense minister in an interview aired by an Israeli public television network. While two soldiers who claim to have seen the tunnel say he’s wrong, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have not yet  issued a public denial.   

The alleged deception happened last August, amid massive protests by Israeli citizens pressing the Israeli government to make a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas. At the time, the status of the Philadelphi Corridor — a 100-meter-wide strip running 14 miles along Gaza’s border with Egypt — was a major obstruction to a hostage deal. (The corridor is a geopolitically important buffer zone that figures in security agreements between Israel and Egypt.) Hamas was demanding a withdrawal of IDF forces from the strip as a condition of a hostage release, while Netanyahu insisted the IDF would continue operating in it.

It was against that backdrop that the IDF released a photo that was supposed to show a Hamas tunnel in the Philadelphi Corridor used to smuggle weapons from Egypt. Israeli-government-sympathetic news outlets and pro-Israel organizations inside the United States seized upon the narrative to defend Netanyahu’s deal-precluding insistence on keeping troops in the corridor. The Times of Israel trumpeted the discovery of an “unusually large smuggling tunnel.” The Israel-catering Foundation for Defense of Democracies said the tunnel was “further evidence of the underground empire of terror that Hamas assembled in southern Gaza. This is important work and should continue.” 

This week, however, Israeli public television network Kan 11 reported that the Israeli government purposefully deceived Israeli citizens and the rest of the world, dressing up a mere water channel as a supposed Hamas tunnel. “There was never a tunnel, but a canal covered in dirt,” said the report. The scheme’s purpose “was to exaggerate the importance of the Philadelphi Corridor and delay a hostage deal.” 

The source of the accusation is a former member of Netanyahu’s government: Yoav Gallant, who was defense minister from 2022 until Netanyahu fired him in November 2024. Speaking about the photo this week, he told Kan 11: 

“What the public cannot see is that this channel is not 30 meters underground, but just one meter underground. It is a covered water conduit…It was not a tunnel, but rather an attempt to prevent a ceasefire agreement...Someone took the picture, and a big fuss was made about it, a lot of headlines… weapons did not pass beneath the Philadelphi corridor.”

NEW | Israeli Army Fabricated Gaza Tunnel Discovery to Stall Ceasefire Talks

Israel’s public broadcaster KAN 11 reports the Israeli military fabricated claims of discovering a tunnel in Gaza’s Philadelphi Corridor to stall ceasefire negotiations and delay a hostage deal.

➤ The… pic.twitter.com/NEU7tJoWsI

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) April 22, 2025

Gallant has been one of Israel’s foremost hostage-deal advocates and a Netanyahu critic. In September, sources said Gallant confronted Netanyahu in a contentious evening security cabinet meeting. “The decision made Thursday [to refuse to withdraw from the corridor] was reached under the assumption that there is time, but if we want the hostages alive, there’s no time,” he reportedly said. “The fact that we prioritize the Philadelphi corridor at the cost of the lives of the hostages is a serious moral disgrace.” Netanyahu was said to have countered with the questionable claim that, if the IDF left the corridor, “the hostages will be taken to Sinai, and then to Iran.” 

Ahead of the airing of the Kan 11 report, two IDF soldiers said Gallant’s claims are false. ”This famous photo is a photo of my battalion commander here in a Hummer entering a very significant tunnel, not some small tunnel as you published,” said Yehuda Bartov, a reserve soldier from the 605th Engineering Battalion. Their assertions were reported by Arutz Sheva, a network associated with the settler movement and extremist Religious Zionism party — the latter of which is part of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.