IDF rejects police account of 25-metre tunnel found in Qalqilya

Israeli security forces carried out an overnight operation in the West Bank city of Qalqilya in which four suspects described as involved in terrorist activity were arrested and two underground shafts were located, the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said. The military said the operation was launched on the basis of intelligence indicating that weapons were present in the area, and that soldiers, the Israel Border Police and the Israel Police took part.

The military said in a statement posted on its English-language account on X that the shafts were about 12 metres deep, that weapons were found near them including an M16 rifle, a hunting rifle, a handgun and ammunition, and that after examination "the presence of a tunnel route was ruled out." The IDF added that the shafts were not close to the security barrier, and criticised what it called irresponsible statements published on the subject.

Two official versions of the same find

The dispute is between two Israeli bodies that both took part in the same operation. The Israel Police had announced that a tunnel at a depth of at least 25 metres had been uncovered in Qalqilya. The army said that what was found were shafts of roughly 12 metres, and that no tunnel route existed.

Ynet reported that the military's language was unusually pointed for a public exchange between the two forces, quoting the IDF as saying that contrary to official and irresponsible announcements issued on the matter, the existence of a tunnel route had been ruled out. The police, according to the same report, stood by their original announcement and said every word in it was correct and based on facts. Neither body has retracted its version, and the sources reviewed here do not resolve which measurement is accurate.

A separate Hebrew report, from News.co.il, gave the same outline: police announced a tunnel of at least 25 metres, the army said two shafts of about 12 metres were found and that checks ruled out a tunnel, and the army stressed the shafts were not near what in Hebrew is called the seam zone, the strip of territory between the Green Line and the route of the barrier.

Where Qalqilya is and why tunnels matter there

Qalqilya is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, in the area Israelis refer to as the Sharon sector, close to the Israeli side of the separation barrier. Its position means any claim of underground construction there is read in Israel through the prism of infiltration risk rather than as a purely local policing matter, which is why the question of whether the shafts were near the barrier featured in the military's statement.

Tunnels as a tactic are associated in Israeli public discussion primarily with the Gaza Strip and with the Lebanese border, where extensive underground networks have been a central military concern. In the West Bank, where Israeli forces operate regularly and where the terrain and population density differ, tunnel finds are not a routine feature of arrest raids. That is part of why the initial police description drew attention, and why the military's correction was itself newsworthy.

What a shaft is, and what it is not

The distinction at the heart of the disagreement is technical. A shaft is a vertical pit dug into the ground. A tunnel route is a horizontal passage connecting points underground. The IDF's position, as stated, is that vertical shafts were dug but that examination found no horizontal passage running from them. The police statement, as described in the Hebrew reporting, referred to a tunnel and to a greater depth. The two accounts are not obviously compatible, and the material available does not explain how the same site produced two different depth figures.

The arrests and the weapons

The IDF said four suspects involved in terrorist activity were apprehended during the operation, and that weapons and magazines were located alongside the shafts. The military's English statement listed the specific items found nearby: an M16 rifle, a hunting rifle, a handgun and ammunition. The reports do not name the suspects or say where they are being held.

What the reports do not say

None of the material identifies who dug the shafts or for what purpose, and no organisation or group has been named in connection with them. There is no information on when the digging took place, on whether the shafts were connected to each other, or on what happens to the site now. The reports do not say whether the police intend to issue a clarification or whether any internal review of the conflicting announcements has been opened. There is no Palestinian account of the operation in the material reviewed, and no information on injuries. The precise wording of the original police announcement is not reproduced in full in the reports available, only summarised.