Gallant: Israeli army faked Gaza tunnel photo to justify military presence
Image released by the Israeli army on 4 August 2924, claimed to be a tunnel along the Gaza-Egypt border
The Palestine Chronicle reports on 22 April 2025:
Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has acknowledged that a widely circulated photo released by the Israeli military—allegedly showing a large tunnel in the Philadelphi Corridor near the Gaza-Egypt border—was misleading.
According to the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (KAN), Gallant stated that the supposed tunnel never existed. What was actually discovered was a shallow trench only about one meter deep.
He said the photo was used to support claims about the existence of tunnels along the corridor, to exaggerate the strategic significance of the Philadelphi Road, and ultimately to stall progress on a prisoner exchange deal.
The image in question was first circulated last August by Israeli media, which described it as proof of a massive, multi-level tunnel allegedly built by Palestinian resistance groups. At the time, it was hailed as a major discovery—a three-story tunnel said to be part of an extensive underground network that reportedly stunned Israeli troops.
Gallant has now revealed that the photo served a political purpose: to underscore the supposed threat posed by the Philadelphi Corridor and to justify military actions under the pretext of disrupting arms smuggling, despite the claim being unfounded.