Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to prove he's not an AI deepfake

The world thinks that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is dead, all because of AI videos and deepfake content.

Social media accounts, predominantly anti-Israel and pro-Iran accounts, are spreading the narrative that Netanyahu was killed or severely injured during Iranian airstrikes.

Accounts such as “Iran News Today” on X are “confirming” Netanyahu’s death for its over 14,000 followers, showing images of an injured person who vaguely resembles the Israeli prime minister.

While users report Netanyahu’s death, the Israeli politician is actively posting via his official social media accounts.

Just 15 hours ago, at the time of publishing, Netanyahu uploaded a clip from the Government Press Office (GPO), an organization responsible for cooperation between the Israeli government and the press in the country.

The clip shows Netanyahu alongside Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on his left, the Chief of Staff ​​Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir on his right, and the head of Mossad, David Barnea, alongside other government officials.

While this should be evidence enough to confirm that Netanyahu is alive, many X users are convinced that this is all an elaborate cover-up.

Many believe that this video was a reupload from a previous war cabinet meeting in 2024, during the war between Israel and Palestine.

One user took a screenshot of the video and asked Google’s Gemini, “When is this image from?”

Gemini analyzed the image and claimed it is from April 13th, 2024, when Iran launched over 330 drones and missiles at Israel.

A pro-Palestinian account with over 266,000 followers claims that the clip was from a previous meeting and has been altered using AI.

However, the GPO published an image of Netanyahu today showing that the PM was in fact at the government meeting, wearing the same suit and red tie from Netanyahu’s X post.

While social media users debate the use of AI in that video, others have attacked Netanyahu’s other X post, claiming it was definitely generated by AI.

In the video, uploaded specifically to show that the Israeli PM is in good health, Netanyahu can be seen ordering coffee at a local coffee shop.

Despite this, people remained determined to prove that the video was generated by sophisticated AI software.

The way Netanyahu holds his coffee cup, how he drinks the coffee, the supposed frame glitch, and “disappearing” elements of the video are supposed signs of AI manipulations.

Many users questioned why the person behind the counter was wearing a mask, suggesting that this was a re-uploaded video taken during the pandemic.

Notably, a supposed journalist with 126,000 followers on X and claims to “expose media bias” responded with an AI-generated image of Netanyahu saying, “a sixth finger can be seen.”

This is playing on the conspiracy theory that Netanyahu had more than five fingers on one hand in a video, which (used to be) a telltale sign of AI manipulation.

However, despite desperate attempts to prove this conspiracy, the coffee shop that Netanyahu visited posted a picture of the Israeli politician on its Instagram.

This post coincides with the aforementioned post that Netanyahu uploaded to X.

NewsGuard, a tool for tackling misinformation and rating sources, further debunked the myth that Netanyahu is dead and Israel is covering it up by creating AI holograms of the politician.

The analysis concluded that the video is, in fact, real, and a chief investigative officer at the AI-detection firm GetReal Security told NewsGuard that they “performed a multimodal analysis of the audio and video, and facial and vocal biometrics” and did not identify any type of synthetic content or AI manipulation.

Many social media accounts are perpetuating this false narrative in response to the US-Israeli airstrikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader and other high-ranking officials.

The types of accounts claiming Netanyahu’s death immediately indicate bias and are being weaponized to spread misinformation in the hope of weakening Israel's global presence.

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