Tehran: Amidst rumours of his death, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) vowed to “pursue and kill” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who they described as a “child-killing criminal”.
“If this child-killing criminal is alive, we will continue to pursue and kill him with full force,” the Guards said in a statement on their website Sepah News on Sunday.
Earlier in the day, the PM’s office in Tel Aviv had dismissed reports of Netanyahu’s death, saying that he is fine. The threat from the IRGC came after that.
There was speculation about the Israeli leader’s well-being after a video posted on Netanyahu’s X handle seemingly showed him with six fingers. This sparked rumours of the footage being manipulated or AI-generated.
Fingers were also pointed at the social media activity of Netanyahu’s son Yair who used to be prolific on X till March 9. After he fell silent, there was speculatio
n that he had done so due to a ‘family tragedy’.
X’s AI chatbot, Grok, however, debunked these claims and rumours. It clarified that the video posted on Netanyahu’s X account was not manipulated. Rather, it was just a visual illusion, which made it seem like he had six fingers, as reported by Hindustan Times.
A spokesperson for the Israeli PM’s office called these “fake news” and assured that he is “fine” when asked about the claims surrounding the phrase “Netanyahu has been assassinated”.
Relations between Iran and Israel have never been good. Matters took a turn for the worse after the unprecedented attack on Jerusalem by the Palestinian militant outfit Hamas – an Iranian proxy – on October 7, 2023.
In 2025, Iran and Israel ended up fighting a 12-day war, with the US getting involved.
The situation turned critical this year after Israel and the US carried out joint strikes on Iran on February 28, even as talks about the country’s nuclear programme were underway in Geneva. The attack on Tehran left Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some members of his family dead.
Iran retaliated, by launching strikes against Israel and US military bases and diplomatic enclaves in the region.
It has been 16 days now and the conflict has snowballed into a full-blown war across the region.