Iran’s Tasnim News Agency published a report on Monday promoting speculation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have been killed or wounded, reviving the kind of wartime rumor that has repeatedly spread online during the current Israel-Iran conflict.

The Persian-language item did not present evidence of a strike on Netanyahu or any official confirmation of harm. Instead, it assembled a series of circumstantial points, including the absence of recent video clips of Netanyahu, reports in Hebrew-language media about tightened security around his home, the postponement of a reported visit by Jared Kushner and US special envoy Steve Witkoff, and a French readout of a call between President Emmanuel Macron and Netanyahu that did not specify the date of the conversation.

Tasnim’s report also leaned on a secondhand claim attributed to former US intelligence officer Scott Ritter, cited through Russian media, alleging that Iran had bombed Netanyahu’s hideout and that his brother had been killed. Tasnim itself noted that the speculation had not been officially confirmed or denied.

The piece fits a familiar pattern in Iranian and pro-Iranian information warfare, with real fragments of public information stitched together into a dramatic narrative, then circulated as if they point to a hidden event. Tasnim is widely described as affiliated with or close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the US Treasury lists the outlet as linked to the IRGC.

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