Topline
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday announced he has successfully completed treatment for prostate cancer, as he disclosed the diagnosis for the first time publicly in a statement on X, and said he is now in “excellent physical condition.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed he was successfully treated for prostate cancer.
POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
Netanyahu said doctors discovered a malignant tumor in his prostate at a “very early stage” and he decided to undergo treatment to remove it completely.
Details were released as part of the Israeli prime minister’s annual medical report published Friday, after a two-month delay he had requested.
Netanyahu said he sought the delay to avoid releasing this information at the height of the war with Iran and he did not want Tehran’s leaders to use it to “spread even more false propaganda against Israel.”
The Israeli leader said after detecting the malignant tumor, doctors offered him a choice between simply monitoring it or getting it removed and he chose the latter because he wants to address any “potential danger…immediately.”
What Else Do We Know About Netanyahu’s Condition?
Citing an unnamed Israeli source, CNN reported that the cancer was diagnosed “several months ago.” The Israeli prime minister reportedly underwent radiation therapy about two and a half months ago and completed the treatment recently. The Israeli Prime Minister’s post said: “I went to a few short treatments, read a book, and continued working.”
Tangent
News of Netanyahu’s cancer treatment comes less than a month after a popular conspiracy theory spread online, suggesting that Netanyahu had been assassinated. Video interviews of the Israeli leader were dismissed, and AI-generated and the Iranian semi-official Tasnim News Agency even baselessly claimed he had been “killed in a missile strike.” The conspiracy was further amplified after Netanyahu posted a video of himself grabbing a coffee at a cafeteria, in a bid to quash the rumors. Netanyahu even showed off all five fingers on his left hand, an apparent jibe at conspiracy theories claiming AI-generated videos of him showed six fingers. However, in response to the video X’s AI chatbot claimed, without evidence, that the video was an AI-generated deepfake.
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