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Threads posts

stated on November 19, 2024 in a Threads post:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hospitalized with “serious health issue.”

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a session of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP)

By Jeff Cercone November 18, 2024

Social media posts spread false claims about Benjamin Netanyahu’s health

If Your Time is short

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Nov. 18 before a committee in the country’s Knesset. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., met with Netanyahu Nov. 16 in Jerusalem.
There are no credible news reports that Netanyahu was recently hospitalized.
An image that accompanied a social media post claiming Netanyahu was ill has been used to spread false claims about his health as far back as 2023.

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Social media posts said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hospitalized with a serious illness. That would be news to members of Israel’s Knesset, where Netanyahu spoke Nov. 18.

A Nov. 18 Threads post said "BREAKING: PM NETANYAHU HOSPITALISED. He suffered serious health issue in Kiryah and has been shifted to a hospital in Tel Aviv." It included an image of Netanyahu wearing an oxygen mask in a hospital bed it described as an "archive pic."

We found numerous social media posts shared Nov. 17 and 18 that shared the same words and image on Facebook, Threads, TikTok and X. Some X posts that shared it cited a Telegram post in Hebrew that, according to Google Translate, attributed the claim to unnamed sources but provided no evidence.

The Threads post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Netanyahu has not recently been hospitalized. We searched Google and Nexis news archives and found no credible news reports that he had. Nor did Netanyahu’s government website or social media accounts include any references to Netanyahu being hospitalized.

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(Screenshot from Threads)

Netanyahu was hospitalized in March, when he had successful hernia surgery at a Jerusalem hospital; he was released April 2.

Instagram posts

stated on October 20, 2024 in an Instagram post

If an election worker writes anything on your ballot before you put it in the voting machine, “your ballot could be disqualified.”

Netanyahu spoke Nov. 18 in a closed-door session before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Israeli news reports said. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he met Nov. 16 with the prime minister in Jerusalem.

We did a reverse image search of the Netanyahu hospital bed image and found it has been used before to sow misinformation about his health. Fact-checkers at Logically Facts reported in April that the image was likely generated by artificial intelligence.

BBC Verify fact-checker Shayan Sardarizadeh debunked the image as AI-generated in a Nov. 7, 2023 X post about a false TikTok that claimed Netanyahu was "suddenly hospitalised."

Social media claims that Netanyahu is hospitalized with a serious illness are False.