A wave of social-media posts claiming Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been assassinated circulated this month, prompting a direct denial from the prime minister's office. On March 14 the office said simply: “This is fake news; the prime minister is fine.” The clarification came amid heightened anxieties after the outbreak of war with Iran.
The rumours first surfaced on March 1, the day after hostilities began, and re-emerged after an unverified March 9 dispatch by Iran’s Tasnim news agency alleging an attack on Netanyahu’s residence that killed his brother and wounded a far-right minister. Those claims were never corroborated by Israeli authorities, but they helped seed speculation that hardened as the conflict intensified.
Israeli officials have been circumspect about the prime minister’s movements since the war started, amplifying public uncertainty. Open-source media reporting records Netanyahu attending synagogue services and giving an interview to Fox News on March 3, and meeting local officials and inspecting the national health command centre on March 10. He did not appear publicly for several days thereafter, a gap that social-media users interpreted in many different—and sometimes conspiratorial—ways.
Fuel was added by a March 13 video the prime minister’s office posted in which Netanyahu addressed Iran’s newly announced supreme leader, warning that a “new tyrant” would not even get a chance to appear. Some X users seized on a frozen frame from the clip, alleging one of Netanyahu’s hands showed six fingers and claiming the footage was an AI-generated deepfake. Reports that he was absent from a March 14 war-cabinet meeting further fanned the rumours.
Fact-checkers examined the full video and found no evidence of manipulation. Lead Stories’ analysis identified the “sixth finger” as a brief shadow created when Netanyahu gestured; in the relevant frame his hands were confirmed to have five fingers each. The episode illustrates how ephemeral visual artifacts and gaps in public visibility can be amplified into plausible-sounding falsehoods.
Beyond the immediate misidentification, the incident highlights larger risks in a high-stakes conflict: misinformation can erode public trust, unsettle allies, and provide adversaries with opportunities to sow confusion. The ease with which a fleeting visual anomaly and a lack of transparent updates produced global speculation underlines the growing challenge posed by AI-enabled fakery and rapid social-media circulation during wartime.