TEL AVIV — A dramatic video circulating on Facebook and X since October 29, 2026, purports to show Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being seriously injured in an attack in Tel Aviv, with a plane supposedly being sent to carry him to the United States. The video is real footage, but it is not footage of Netanyahu, it is not from Tel Aviv, and it is not from 2026. It shows an attempted gun attack on Bulgarian politician Ahmed Dogan in Sofia on January 19, 2013 — more than 13 years before the alleged attack.

The claim, as circulated

The claim took several forms as it spread. A Facebook reel shared by the page “Why ? I am Shia” on October 29 carried the caption that a very serious attack on Netanyahu in Tel Aviv had left him seriously injured, with a plane being sent to transfer him to the United States. A commentary account on X posted the same footage on October 30 with a similar warning of severe injuries and an aircraft being dispatched. Another version shared on X claimed Netanyahu had been attacked by an anonymous assailant and was seriously injured, adding that he was still unable to form a government. Investigators identified at least 16 distinct Facebook reels circulating versions of the claim, and one of the X posts has since been removed by the platform.

Why the timing made it believable

The footage resurfaced at a moment when a false attack claim could easily gain traction. Israel held a general election on October 27, 2026, and on October 30 the Central Elections Committee published results giving Netanyahu's Likud-led bloc 53 seats, against 48 for the opposition and 19 for two Arab-led parties, leaving coalition-building unresolved. That unresolved result is the real context for the posts claiming Netanyahu could not form a government, and it is covered in our reporting on Israel's election and Netanyahu's fight for survival. But no credible Israeli or international outlet reported any attack on Netanyahu, and keyword searches by fact-checkers found no news report stating that the prime minister had been attacked.

The original footage: Sofia, January 19, 2013

Keyframe comparisons trace the circulating clip frame by frame to the January 2013 incident. The man at the lectern is Ahmed Dogan, then leader of Bulgaria's Movement for Rights and Freedoms, speaking at a party congress in Sofia. The attacker, identified in contemporaneous reporting as 25-year-old Bulgarian national Oktay Enimehmedov, approached Dogan and pointed a gas pistol at his head. Dogan struck the man before he could fire, and delegates wrestled the attacker to the ground. No shots were fired, and Dogan escaped unharmed. The Cyrillic lettering “ДПС” visible on the lectern is the Bulgarian abbreviation of Dogan's party, confirmed by the party's own official materials. The same footage was published on January 19, 2013, by news video outlets and by a YouTube upload titled about a gun attack during a televised conference in Bulgaria, and it was documented again in reporting on January 20 and 21, 2013, by major news organisations.

A recycled clip, not a new event

This is not the first time the 2013 footage has been attached to Netanyahu. The same clip was investigated in December 2024, when it was falsely presented as showing Israeli MPs attacking and beating Netanyahu in parliament. The footage has now resurfaced with a different allegation — a street-style attack in Tel Aviv and a medical evacuation flight to the United States — for which the video itself provides no evidence at all. The man in the footage is not Netanyahu, the lectern does not belong to an Israeli event, the language on it is Bulgarian, and the incident it records ended with Dogan unharmed in 2013.

Our finding

The claim is False. The viral video does not show an attack on Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv in October 2026, and there is no evidence that he was seriously injured or that a plane was dispatched to transport him to the United States. It shows the attempted attack on Ahmed Dogan in Sofia on January 19, 2013. Readers should be especially wary of dramatic attack footage shared in the days after a contested election: the Middle East section carries our verified coverage of the election outcome and its aftermath, and none of it includes any attack on the prime minister.