The 'Five-Finger' Strategy: Did Benjamin Netanyahu Want the World to Think He's AI?

Israeli Prime Minister used a video filmed in a coffee shop in Israel on Sunday to mock online rumours that he had been assassinated by Iran, delivering a pointed response as the claims spread across social media and into state-backed rhetoric. In the clip, Benjamin Netanyahu appeared relaxed, bought a drink and looked straight into the camera, asking, 'They say I'm what?'

The rumours had been building since late last week, when online users claimed a recent video of Netanyahu showed six fingers on one hand and must therefore have been generated by artificial intelligence. That flimsy theory quickly hardened into something more sinister, with posts claiming he had been killed, even as Iranian state media carried a headline saying the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would pursue and kill him 'if he is still alive'.

Benjamin Netanyahu Turns Rumour Into Theatre

Netanyahu's answer was not a formal statement from behind a lectern. It was something more nimble and, in truth, more suited to the digital sludge he was trying to cut through. He filmed himself buying coffee, joked about the calorie count and then, with studied casualness, flashed both hands clearly enough for anyone still obsessing over the finger count to keep score.

'I think coffee is to die for, I think my nation is to die for,' he said in the video. The line was half joke, half message discipline, which is often how Netanyahu operates when he wants to remind critics and supporters alike that he is still the central actor in Israel's political drama.

Netanyahu posted the video. He was visibly alive. He showed five fingers on both hands. Beyond that, the assassination narrative remained just that, a narrative, amplified by conspiracy accounts and then complicated by a real public threat from Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

In wartime, online rumours do not stay small for long. What looks like a visual glitch can quickly become a bogus claim dressed up as a state secret. Netanyahu seemed to know that a flat denial would not land, so he responded with a video that mocked the rumour and made his point plainly.

Benjamin Netanyahu Keeps The War In View

Even while swatting away the rumours, Netanyahu used the video to steer attention back to the war itself. In conversation at the coffee shop, translated from Hebrew, he said, 'We are doing things that I cannot share at this moment, but we are doing things.' He added that Israel was hitting Iran 'very hard' and continuing operations in Lebanon.

That mattered because the clip was never just about disproving nonsense online. It was also a wartime signal from a leader eager to project control. Under Netanyahu's watch, Israel joined the US in launching a war against Iran on 28 February. Israel has also carried out strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, the Iran-aligned group designated by the US as a terrorist organisation.

Iran, meanwhile, has fired rockets and drones at Israel, with some getting through the country's missile defences. The Israel Defense Force claimed on Saturday to have killed two senior Iranian intelligence officers, another sign that the conflict is still escalating faster than the public picture can keep up with.

Reports have said that, early in the war, Israel carried out the strikes that killed Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with US intelligence support. President Donald Trump put it in typically blunt terms earlier this month, saying, 'I got him before he got me. They tried twice ... I got him first.'

Mojtaba Khamenei was quickly named as Iran's next supreme leader after his father's death, but there are open questions about his condition and even whether he is alive. On Sunday, US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told CNN, 'It's unclear that he really has control of the country, if he's even alive at this point.'