Iran’s supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint attack by Israel and the United States in Iran.
In this context, citing the Qatar-based TV channel Al Jazeera as a source, it is being claimed on social media that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been killed in an Iranian ballistic missile attack.
See posts circulated on Facebook with the said claim: here, here, here.
Fact Check
The Rumor Scanner team’s investigation reveals that the claim of Benjamin Netanyahu’s death is not correct. In reality, this claim has been circulated citing fabricated sources by exploiting Al Jazeera’s name.
Investigating this matter, no such information was found on Al Jazeera’s website. The media outlet’s website also has a separate tag for Netanyahu. No such report or information was found to exist there either.
If Netanyahu were killed in an Iranian ballistic missile attack, a formal claim or statement would naturally come from Iran regarding the matter. But no information regarding such a claim was found. No such information was published in Iranian state and semi-state media such as Tasnim News and IRNA News agency either.
Furthermore, if the death of an internationally discussed state leader like Netanyahu had occurred, it would have been published with great importance in various media outlets at home and abroad. But no reliable information regarding this was found.
Therefore, the claim that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been killed in an Iranian ballistic missile attack is completely false.
Sources
- Al Jazeera: Benjamin Netanyahu
- Rumor Scanner’s analysis