Benjamin Netanyahu is very much alive, and he wanted Iran to know it — over coffee.
The Israeli prime minister posted a video Sunday on Telegram showing himself at a Jerusalem-area café, ordering a coffee and chatting with an aide. The move came after Iranian state media spent days pushing the claim that Netanyahu had been killed or seriously wounded since the joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran began on February 28.
The death rumors originated with Tasnim News Agency, an outlet believed to be affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The agency pointed to a stretch of days when Netanyahu had not appeared publicly, and only text-based statements had been issued under his name, arguing those gaps were evidence he’d been struck by Iranian missiles.
The rumors picked up steam on social media, including a viral claim that Netanyahu’s March 12 press conference video was AI-generated because he appeared to show six fingers in one frame. PolitiFact rated the claim “Pants on Fire,” noting a frame-by-frame review showed five fingers on each hand. Snopes also debunked the death claim, calling it unverified misinformation tied to Iranian information operations. The Jerusalem Post described the campaign as a “familiar pattern in Iranian and pro-Iranian information warfare, with real fragments of public information stitched together into a dramatic narrative.”
Netanyahu’s office dismissed the claims directly: “This is fake news; the Prime Minister is fine.”
Netanyahu’s Sunday café video was both a rebuttal and a joke. When his aide asked him about the rumors, Netanyahu responded using the Hebrew word “met,” which literally means “dead,” but is also used in Hebrew slang the way English speakers use “crazy about.” So when he said he was “met on coffee” and “met on his nation,” he was playing both meanings at once.
He then held up both hands to the camera, ten fingers, clearly, directly addressing the AI-manipulation claims.
Reuters confirmed the video’s location by cross-referencing file imagery of the café’s interior. The date was verified through photos and videos the café itself posted on its accounts on Sunday.
Netanyahu also used the moment to urge Israelis to stay close to sheltered areas even as they venture outside. “Your strength,” he said, “gives me, the government, the IDF, and the Mossad strength.”
The death rumors didn’t emerge in a vacuum. Iran’s information apparatus has been active since the joint U.S.-Israel strikes launched on February 28 killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and decimated much of the Iranian military and political leadership. Iran has since launched wave after wave of retaliatory missile and drone strikes against Israel, U.S. bases in the region, and several Gulf states.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the former supreme leader’s son, was named his successor on March 8 after Iran’s Assembly of Experts convened. Trump called the pick a “lightweight” and signaled it wouldn’t change U.S. objectives. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded to Sunday’s video by saying that if Netanyahu is alive, they “will continue to pursue and kill him with full force.”
Netanyahu, for his part, has kept a low public profile throughout the conflict, which is not unusual given Israel’s wartime security protocols that prohibit public gatherings and have kept schools closed across most of the country. He held his first press conference since the war started on March 12, via video link, the same format he used during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran last June.
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