In 2026, a decade-old BBC News report with the headline, "Hamas 'seizes Israeli spy dolphin' off Gaza," circulated online. The article details how the Palestinian political group's military wing allegedly caught a dolphin equipped with "spying devices," including cameras.
Some social media users appeared to cast doubt on Hamas' claim and the BBC's reporting. One X account that posted a screenshot of the article wrote (archived), "Hamas: We arrested a Mossad dolphin. BBC: Print it."
The BBC did not independently verify the claim. Instead, the publication attributed the rumor to Hamas and reporting by Al-Quds Al-Arabi, an Arabic-language newspaper. Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that Hamas' military wing, the Qassam Brigades, caught the spy mammal.
International news outlets like DW and CNN also reported on the story in 2015 but did not independently verify Hamas' claim.
Snopes, too, could not independently verify the story. We put the rumor to the Israeli military, which received our message but did not reply before the publication of this article. It was not possible to reach a representative of Hamas' military wing that allegedly caught the "spy dolphin."
Therefore, we have left this claim unrated.
It did not appear from any reports or searches that Hamas released photo or video evidence to back its accusation in 2015. Such evidence would have been included in the reports linked above if Hamas had published it.
An August 2015 Times of Israel report suggested that the crux of Hamas' claim may have been lost in translation. According to the Jerusalem-based outlet, Iranian news agency Fars reported that the alleged spy dolphin was actually a robot, rather than a live dolphin.
Snopes could not find the original Fars reporting to verify the Times of Israel's interpretation of the story.
It is unclear what happened to the dolphin the Qassam brigades allegedly captured in 2015.
A second dolphin
In 2022, reports surfaced again, this time accompanied by a video (archived) featuring a spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, the same group that reportedly captured the original "spy dolphin" seven years earlier.
One X user reported that this dolphin killed a Hamas fighter. According to an Arabic speaker Snopes consulted, the spokesperson did not say that in the footage.
Snopes could not independently verify the authenticity of the 2022 clip because the Telegram channel for the Qassam Brigades, where the group would have issued such a video, is blocked in the U.S. and the U.K. The video featured the correct seal of the Qassam Brigades and circulated online before generative artificial intelligence was widely available.
The Middle East Media Research Institute, an American nonprofit that specializes in Middle Eastern media monitoring, logged the video in its archive in January 2022. According to the institute, the video did come from the Qassam Brigades Telegram channel.
Israeli news outlets included the footage in their reports at the time. The Israeli government appeared to mock Hamas' claims, posting (archived) eight dolphin emojis on its official X account days after the Qassam Brigades clip circulated online.
US, Russia allegedly train dolphins to kill
Though we could not draw a firm conclusion on the existence of Israeli-trained spy dolphins due to a lack of verifiable sources, Israel is not the only country alleged to have trained animals to kill.
In May 2026, Snopes investigated a claim that the U.S. Navy trained "kamikaze dolphins" and used them during marine combat operations against Iran. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said at the time that he could neither "confirm or deny" the existence of such mammals.
The U.S. Navy does train marine mammals for mine detection, recovery and other purposes through the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific's Marine Mammal Program.
In 2017, Russian news outlet Russia Beyond reported on the work of the Murmansk Marine Biological Institute and the Sevastopol Oceanarium, two facilities that allegedly trained marine mammals, including dolphins, for military purposes.
The facilities reportedly trained bottlenose dolphins to kill intruders using "a special dolphin muzzle with a spike." It is unclear whether the dolphin that the Qassam Brigades allegedly caught in 2022 wore a similar device.
For further reading, Snopes has previously reported on other claims about dolphins and other marine life.