The AI wars: Netanyahu & Huckabee mock fake reports that PM is dead – but millions continue to believe

The war in Iran has triggered a cascade of fake and doctored AI videos and pictures, most of them trying to support wild and unfounded claims, for example, that Israel’s prime minister is dead, its cities are devastated, and its army bases are ruined.

But no evidence to the contrary is ever good enough, and the outlandish theories have continued despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu having published increasingly mocking videos “proving” he is still alive.

The claims are fueled by grandiose boasts from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which often publishes ostensibly intended targets for its missile barrages, irrespective of whether the missile is intercepted or even ends up coming close.

One of the genres of claims started at the very beginning of the war, when flight-tracking websites showed that the Israeli “Air Force One” had flown to Berlin, apparently to provide a safe area to park the plane amid the war. This gave rise to allegations that Netanyahu had “fled the sinking ship” and was running the war from outside the country.

However, the main fuel for the wild speculations, which often veer into outright antisemitism and anti-Israeli propaganda, comes from AI.

The idea of “Netanyahu in Berlin” was supported first by his alleged lack of public appearances, and then by claims that videos showing him in Israel, for example, on the roof of the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, were edited with a green screen.

@grok Does Netanyahu sometimes have six fingers? pic.twitter.com/DKgiC9IWlK

— Hamza Çeliker (@hamzaceliker23) March 13, 2026

A more recent wave of claims saying Netanyahu was dead was triggered by footage from a press briefing last Friday, where a shadow at one point made his hand seem to have six fingers – a common marker of videos created with AI, which often struggles to generate realistic-looking hands and feet.

“Imagine Netanyahu was actually dead this entire past week,” pro-Palestinian TikTok influencer Guy Christensen wrote on 𝕏. “It’s too good to be true but Israel has been using AI generated videos of Netanyahu ever since. One can only hope.”

Netanyahu responded by filming and releasing a video of himself visiting a café at Sataf National Park on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Netanyahu genuinely might be dead. This is the second likely AI video of him in just two days they’ve posted…

Check the comments for analysis.

2026 is willlld https://t.co/brHFtwRuGw

— Ian Carroll (@IanCarrollShow) March 16, 2026

In the video, the cameraman asks about the allegations of his demise. “They’re saying you’re dead,” the cameraman asks, to which Netanyahu responds, “I’m dying for coffee,” using a Hebrew slang phrase meaning “to be crazy” about something.

“I’m crazy about my people, how they behave admirably,” he adds, before holding up both hands to show they have five fingers.

The Netanyahu video truthers are now learning about video compression artifacting and, predictably, denying that it happens.pic.twitter.com/E7hMootSOV

— Max 📟 (@MaxNordau) March 16, 2026

Nevertheless, people online pointed to ostensible markers of AI-edits in the video, like the coffee in his cup not being visibly lower after Netanyahu took a sip, the “wrong” way the prime minister’s jacket moved when he inserted his hand, or the allegedly disappearing ring on his finger.

So Netanyahu doubled down with a video showing him alongside U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, who can be seen jokingly telling him that President Trump sent him to see Netanyahu to see if he was “OK.”

Mike Huckabee: I wanted you to know the President asked me to come and make sure you were okay.

Netanyahu: Yes Mike. Yes. I'm alive.

We shake hands with five fingers in each hand, you know.

I'm alive but I have this card. No, don't read it. So it's a punch card. Today I… pic.twitter.com/joktJXPgRK

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) March 17, 2026

The two laugh, and then Netanyahu responds, “Yes, Mike,” adding, “You know, we shake hands with five fingers in each hand.”

However, the prime minister made a fatal mistake when telling Huckabee that Israel is killing Iranian leaders “who would like to develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to every American city after wiping out Israel.”

Candace Owens got debunked while live on air today.

She decided to jump head first into the dumbest conspiracy on the internet right now and dedicated a large portion of her show today to pretending Netanyahu is dead.

She questioned if Netanyahu’s recent videos were AI and even… pic.twitter.com/1pMTMrSTPd

— Cinema Shogun (@CinemaShogun) March 18, 2026

The mistake was adding, “They ain’t going to do that,” alarming notorious anti-Israel activist Candace Owens. In a recent segment of her show, Owens seized on the phrase “ain’t,” deciding it was a strong indicator that the video is not real.

“I don’t say ‘ain’t’. That’s a unique dialect, it’s regional,” she said, adding that “these hyperproduced videos feel strange” to her.

However, as she continued to question why the prime minister didn’t just do “what he used to do” to prove he was indeed alive, she was interrupted by her producer, who pointed out that a statement by the prime minister was live-streamed at that exact time.

AI technology is further exacerbating the problem by being the go-to tool to “prove” AI manipulations on social media, often failing horrifically.

For example, Huckabee commented on a post of someone asking 𝕏’s integrated AI program, “Grok,” whether the video of him and Netanyahu was real.

Grok concluded the video was “satirical AI-generated content.”

Sorry Grok. You blew it. It was very much a real meeting held today. I should know. I was there. No AI on this at all! https://t.co/PaknPjrtVg

— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) March 17, 2026

“Sorry Grok. You blew it. It was very much a real meeting held today. I should know. I was there. No AI on this at all,” Huckabee replied, publishing another picture of their meeting with the caption, “My meeting [with Netanyahu] was today. He sure looked alive & was in great spirits. News to the contrary? Phony as a Kosher pork chop.”

The specific claims surrounding Netanyahu only highlight a much broader problem.

According to a report from Israel's disinformation detection company Cyabra, which was cited by the Times of Israel, this “campaign did not spread organically.”

“Clear coordination patterns were identified, including repeated narratives, identical videos and captions, fixed hashtag clusters, and synchronized burst posting,” Cyabra said.

LMAO 🤣
Iran's state TV shows poorly made AI-generated videos as evidence of damage in Israel 👇 pic.twitter.com/FmKkGYeoT1

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) June 21, 2025

The report identified networks of tens of thousands of pro-Iranian accounts creating content that generated 145 million views in the first two weeks of the war.

“These tactics allowed the network to rapidly flood the information environment and dominate online discussions during key moments of the conflict.”

Last week, The New York Times said it found “over 110 unique A.I.-generated images and videos from the past two weeks about the war in the Middle East,” including fakes showing “screaming Israelis cowering as explosions ripped through Tel Aviv, Iranians mourning their dead and American military vessels bombarded with missiles and torpedoes.”