VERDICT: FALSE — The viral video does not show Benjamin Netanyahu being attacked in Tel Aviv. It shows a 2013 attack on Bulgarian politician Ahmed Dogan in Sofia, more than 13 years before the alleged incident.
The claim
Since 28 October 2026, posts on X and Facebook have claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seriously injured in an attack in Tel Aviv, and that a plane was being sent to fly him to the United States for treatment. One Facebook reel, shared by a page called “Why ? I am Shia” on 29 October, carried the caption “A very serious attack on Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, it seems he has sustained serious injuries, and a plane is being sent to transfer him to the United States.” Versions kept appearing through 30 and 31 October.
The timing is no accident. Israel held a general election on 27 October, and the count was still being finalised when the video began circulating. Fact-checkers tracking the spread found at least 16 distinct Facebook reels carrying versions of the claim, alongside posts on X.
The facts
1. The lectern gives the footage away. Look closely at the podium in the circulating clip and you can see Cyrillic lettering: “ДПС”. That is not Hebrew, and it is not the name of any Israeli party. ДПС is the Bulgarian abbreviation for the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), as the party’s own website confirms. The video was not filmed in Tel Aviv. It was filmed at a Bulgarian party conference.
2. The original footage is from 19 January 2013. The clip matches, frame for frame, footage published on the day of an attack on Ahmed Dogan, then the leader of the MRF, during the party’s congress in Sofia, Bulgaria. The original ITN footage from 19 January 2013 shows the same scene: a man walks up to the speaker, points a weapon at him, and is wrestled to the ground by people on stage. The Guardian published the same incident on 21 January 2013, credited to Reuters.
3. The man in the video was not hurt — and he was not Netanyahu. Reporting from January 2013, including the BBC and the Associated Press, recorded what happened in Sofia. The attacker was Oktay Enimehmedov, a 25-year-old Bulgarian national, who pointed a gas pistol — a non-lethal weapon — at Dogan while he was speaking. The gun misfired, no shots were fired, and Dogan escaped unharmed, returning to the hall a few hours later to a standing ovation. Nothing in that reporting, or in the footage, has any connection to Netanyahu, Tel Aviv, or 2026.
4. Netanyahu was publicly active after the supposed attack. The claim says Netanyahu was seriously injured around 28 October. Yet on 30 October he was posting publicly about the election outcome, after Israel’s Central Elections Committee published the final results of Israel’s October 27 election, in which his bloc won 53 seats but fell short of a majority. A seriously injured prime minister being flown abroad for treatment does not issue political statements about coalition-building two days later. No credible news organisation or Israeli authority has reported any attack on Netanyahu, any injury, or any medical flight.
5. This footage has been recycled before. The same Sofia clip was already falsely presented in December 2024 as showing Israeli MPs attacking Netanyahu in parliament. Fact-checkers debunked it then, and it has now resurfaced with a new caption attached to the same old pictures. Old footage with a new claim is one of the most common forms of misinformation: the pictures are real, which makes the lie feel convincing, but everything the caption says about them is wrong.
Verdict
FALSE. The video shows an attempted gas-pistol attack on Bulgarian politician Ahmed Dogan in Sofia on 19 January 2013, in which Dogan was unharmed. It does not show Benjamin Netanyahu, it was not filmed in Tel Aviv, and there is no evidence that Netanyahu was attacked, seriously injured, or flown to the United States in October 2026.
Why it matters
A false report that a sitting prime minister has been seriously injured, days after a fiercely contested election in which no bloc won a majority, is not harmless gossip. It can inflame supporters, deepen suspicion about the result, and crowd out real reporting when accurate information matters most. It also follows a familiar pattern — genuine old images dressed up with invented captions, as in the doctored photograph that falsely showed a Saudi minister kissing Iran’s president’s hand. Before sharing a dramatic clip, check the details in the frame itself. Here, three Cyrillic letters were enough to unravel the whole story. Full details are in Soch Fact Check’s investigation.
