Israel's longest-serving leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, has for the first time admitted he was secretly treated for early-stage prostate cancer in recent months, deliberately withholding the diagnosis and subsequent radiation treatment from the public for two months. The revelation, made on Friday alongside the release of his annual health report, was framed by the Israeli Prime Minister as a national security measure, a calculated delay to prevent what he called the "terrorist regime in Iran" from exploiting his condition for "false propaganda" during the height of the war.
Netanyahu's annual medical report, dated 20 April, confirmed that the 76‑year‑old premier was diagnosed after a routine post‑surgery MRI in late 2024 discovered a suspicious lesion measuring less than a centimetre, which was later confirmed as a very early‑stage malignant tumour with no evidence of metastases. He was given the option of simply monitoring the tumour or undergoing radiation treatment; he chose the latter. Prof. Aron Popovtzer, director of the Sharett Oncology Institute at Hadassah Medical Center, confirmed that the prime minister's prostate cancer was a common, early‑stage adenocarcinoma that disappeared completely following a course of focused radiation therapy. The treatment took place about 10 weeks ago, meaning it concluded around mid‑February, a mere two weeks before the United States and Israel launched their joint bombing campaign against Iran. Yet Netanyahu kept the diagnosis secret throughout the entirety of the seven‑week war.
In his social media statement, Netanyahu claimed he had asked to delay the publication of his medical report by two months "so it would not be published at the height of the war, in order not to allow the terrorist regime in Iran to spread more false propaganda against Israel". His office further argued that releasing the information during the fighting would have given Tehran a propaganda weapon. At the height of the conflict in March, Iranian state media did in fact air baseless rumours that Netanyahu had been injured or killed in an Israeli military incident. The prime minister was forced to respond by filming a video of himself drinking coffee in a Jerusalem cafe. Tehran, for its part, has stated that it was merely reporting the rumours that were already circulating widely on social media.
The premier has a long history of minimising and delaying health disclosures. In 2023, a week after fainting at a public ceremony in Tel Aviv, he revealed he had undergone emergency pacemaker surgery. At the time, critics accused his office of deliberately withholding the severity of his heart condition from the public. His 76‑year‑old health profile now includes a pacemaker, a history of hernia surgery, and a benign prostate enlargement that required surgery in December 2024. All of this has led to persistent questions about the physical capacity of a leader who is also fighting wars on multiple fronts. With Israelis expected to go to the polls by October, Netanyahu’s sudden insistence that he is in “excellent physical condition” while having just completed cancer treatment from which he kept them entirely in the dark may strike many as an attempt to manage not just his health, but his political narrative.