Gaza Tunnels: The BBC Already Knew

We were all told that Israel’s claims about Gaza’s tunnels still needed to be proved.
So when the tunnels were exposed after October 7, the world reacted with astonishment.

But there was nothing new to discover.

In 2015, BBC News correspondent Quentin Sommerville was searched, blindfolded and taken by Palestinian Islamic Jihad to a secret position near Israel’s border.

There, the BBC filmed:

• A concealed mortar emplacement buried in an olive grove
• An “ample supply” of 120mm mortars
• A well-constructed tunnel extending hundreds of metres
• Islamic Jihad terrorists openly preparing for their next war with Israel

Sommerville described it as:

“An extensive network…right by the border with Israel.”

The terrorists were not concealing their intentions. They proudly showed the BBC what they had built and explained how they planned to use it. Yet eight years later, as Israel described the vast military infrastructure beneath Gaza, the language returned to:

“We have not seen the evidence.” “We cannot independently verify Israel’s claims.”

And because the BBC -and much of the international media – failed to remind audiences what they already knew, everyone behaved as though the tunnels were a shocking new revelation.

We didn’t know that they knew.

We didn’t know that a BBC correspondent had already been taken inside the tunnel network. We didn’t know that the terrorists themselves had displayed it for BBC cameras.

The surprise of 2023 was manufactured by institutional amnesia.

The tunnels were not an Israeli invention. They were not an allegation created after October 7. The BBC had seen them. The terrorists had shown them.

And the archive was there all along.

Republished with permission from Sharleen Herz.

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