Iran issues chilling threat to assassinate Netanyahu ‘if he is still alive’ after suspicious video surfaces

Iran has issued a chilling warning, claiming it intends to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Iran is currently in conflict with Israel and the US, with hostilities said to have begun between the three countries on February 28.

Israel and the US carried out strikes at the end of last month on multiple locations inside Iran, including the capital, Tehran.

One strike reportedly hit an elementary school, killing 168 people — many of them children.

The reported deaths have sparked anger worldwide, with Pope Leo also weighing in and calling for a ceasefire.

Iran has now claimed it will target Netanyahu, referring to him as a “child-killer.”

“IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] vows to pursue and kill ‘child-killer’ Netanyahu if he is still alive,” Iran’s IRNA news agency posted on Twitter on Sunday (March 15).

Questions about whether Netanyahu is alive have circulated after a clip from a national address went viral online.

The speech lasted more than half an hour and showed Netanyahu speaking directly to camera while standing in front of a large Israeli flag. It was streamed by the Government Press Office on March 12.

He said in part of the speech (via WION): “We are crushing Iran and Hezbollah. We eliminated the old tyrant, and the new tyrant, the puppet of the Revolutionary Guards, can’t show his face in public.”

The comments came amid claims that Iran’s new supreme leader is “in hiding.”

However, viewers also pointed to an odd moment in the footage where Netanyahu appears to briefly have six fingers, prompting speculation online that the broadcast may have been created using artificial intelligence — and that the prime minister could be dead.

AI ‘often struggles with limbs and joints’, Konstantin Levinzon, co-founder of Planet VPN, previously explained.

Separately, Iran’s Tasnim News Agency published a report on Monday amplifying claims that Netanyahu had died. The report alleged that the prime minister’s hideout had been bombed, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Netanyahu’s office has rejected the suggestions that the footage was fabricated or that he is dead.

“These are fake news; the Prime Minister is fine,” the office insisted, per Middle East Monitor.

In addition to the official denial, multiple fact-checking organizations have said the video circulating from earlier this week is real and not AI-generated.