Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he was in “excellent physical condition” after he was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer 18 months ago. He said that he delayed revealing the news to the public to prevent Iran from using it as “propaganda”.
However, two and a half months ago, his doctors discovered and treated a small tumour at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital with radiation therapy.
“We can say based on the findings of these tests that the disease has disappeared,” Aharon Popovtser, the director of Hadassah Hospital’s oncology unit, said.
היום התפרסם הדו״ח הרפואי השנתי שלי.
ביקשתי לעכב את פרסומו בחודשיים כדי שהוא לא יפורסם בשיא המלחמה על מנת שלא לאפשר למשטר הטרור באיראן להפיץ עוד תעמולת כזב נגד ישראל.
אני מבקש לשתף אתכם בשלושה דברים:
1 – ברוך השם, אני בריא.
2 – אני בכושר גופני מצויין.
3 – הייתה לי בעיה…
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) April 24, 2026
The 76-year-old said in a post on X that the treatment had “removed the problem and left no trace of it”.
“I requested to delay its publication by two months so that it would not be released at the height of the war, in order not to allow the Iranian terror regime to spread even more false propaganda against Israel”, Netanyahu wrote in the post.
During the early weeks of the war with Iran, fake, AI-generated images of Netanyahu were circulating, suggesting that he had died. However, the Israeli leader recorded a video of himself visiting a Jerusalem cafe in March to refute the claims.
Israel’s longest-serving prime minister has faced criticism in the past for not disclosing information about his health, including when he told the public he had a pacemaker implanted to address a long-standing heart condition a week after he fainted at a public appearance.