In the past few days, two extraordinary claims have flooded social media: that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dead and that Tel Aviv lies in ruins. Neither is true, yet both have spread widely online, a symptom of the growing crisis of misinformation in wartime.
The Netanyahu “Death” Hoax
The rumor of Netanyahu’s death occurs every round of Israeli fighting, this time originating with Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, a media outlet linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It claimed the prime minister was killed in a missile strike last week, a story then amplified across social media.
There is no evidence for this. An image allegedly showing Netanyahu being pulled from rubble was an AI fabrication. The Prime Minister has been publicly visible multiple times this month, including visits to Beit Shemesh and Be’er Sheva, and even appeared in a televised press conference last Thursday.
That appearance itself sparked another wave of conspiracies. Some claimed, with shoddy photographic evidence, that Netanyahu had six fingers, implying the video was AI-generated. Netanyahu released a video on his social media of him at a coffee shop, showing he’s alive, well, and anatomically normal.
AI Bombings and the “Rubble of Tel Aviv”
Meanwhile, AI-generated videos claiming Tel Aviv has been “flattened” have become one of the war’s most virulent falsehoods. Some clips purport to show large-scale destruction hidden by Israeli media censorship. On the ground, though, the...
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