Did the head of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's medical team say he had been diagnosed with "grade 3" prostate cancer? No, that's not true: The spokesperson for Netanyahu told Lead Stories he underwent surgery to remove his prostate after an infection "stemming from a benign enlargement of his prostate." Using Google News' index, we did not find news articles reporting Netanyahu was diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer and his office had not announced this as of December 31, 2024.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on December 29, 2024. It read:
BREAKING: 🇮🇱 Head of the Israeli Prime Minister's Medical Team: Netanyahu has been diagnosed with Grade 3 prostate cancer.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Dec 30 16:22:11 2024 UTC)
The post does not offer proof of the claim, just saying the "Head of the Israeli Prime Minister's Medical Team" with no name, document or other evidence.
David Baker, senior foreign press coordinator for Netanyahu (archived here), told Lead Stories in two statements via email on December 31, 2024, that the prime minister had his prostate removed after an infection. The statement, released December 28, 2024, read, in part:
Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underwent an examination at Hadassah Hospital in the course of which was discovered a urinary tract infection stemming from a benign enlargement of his prostate. Since then, for several days, the Prime Minister has been treated with antibiotics which have successfully dealt with the infection.
As a result, Prime Minister Netanyahu will undergo treatment tomorrow to remove his prostate.
Baker emailed a second press release from Sunday, December 29, 2024, which noted that Netanyahu's surgery "concluded successfully and without complications":
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's surgery has concluded successfully and without complications.
The Prime Minister has awakened from the anesthesia, is in good condition and is fully conscious. He has been transferred to the underground, protected recovery unit. He is expected to remain in the hospital for observation in the coming days.
Prime Minister Netanyahu thanks the dedicated medical team: Professor Ofer Gofrit, Professor Mordechai Duvdevani and Dr. Stephane Ledot from Hadassah; and Dr. Ehud Gnessin from Shamir Medical Center. The Prime Minister's personal physician, Dr. Tzvika Berkowitz, closely attended him.
In the X post claiming a cancer diagnosis, there was no evidence offered that any Israeli government official had said Netanyahu had "grade 3 prostate cancer." Lead Stories did a Google Keyword search (archived here) of the key phrase from the post: "Netanyahu has been diagnosed with Grade 3 prostate cancer," which did not return any news articles that reported the head of Netanyahu's medical team said he had cancer as of December 31, 2024. Had Netanyahu been diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer, his condition would have been national and international news.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about Benjamin Netanyahu can be found here and fact checks about the Hamas Israel war can be found here.
