Claim: Netanyahu is seen being “attacked and beaten up” by members of the Israeli parliament in a video.
Fact: The video is old and unrelated; it actually shows an assassination attempt on Bulgarian politician Ahmed Dogan in 2013.
On 29 November 2024, Facebook user ‘Syed Waqar Hussain Shah’ posted (archive) a video that initially shows Benjamin Netanyahu speaking before cutting to a clip of a man, who resembles the Israeli prime minister being attacked on a stage.
The accompanying caption reads:
“🇮🇱Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu was attacked and beaten up in Israel parliament by MPs ہاہاہا”
Fact or Fiction?
First, Soch Fact Check identified that the text above and below the video is Chinese. Translated using Google, it reads, “Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Wanted globally by the International Court of Justice. Netanyahu was in Israel yesterday. National tournament. Beaten by Israeli Senators. You can’t live if you do something wrong to yourself.”
While the words on the canvas behind Netanyahu are in Hebrew, those on the podium in the clip right after are not; instead, they appear quite similar to the Russian alphabet. Reverse-searching that portion of the keyframe picked up the word “ДПС,” which translates to DPS in Bulgarian, and the logo was identified as that of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), a Bulgarian party founded by politician Ahmed Dogan.
Interestingly, Bulgarian is written using Cyrillic script, which is also used for the Russian language.
Secondly, when we reverse-searched keyframes from the viral clip, we came across a YouTube video, which was titled “Assassination Attempt Of Ahmed Dogan” and posted on 28 April 2021. Its description reads as follows:
“On 19 January 2013, as Dogan addressed a large audience from a podium, an assailant ran onto the stage and pointed a pistol within a foot of Dogan’s head. The attacker used a gas pistol with blank cartridges but it failed to fire.[7] According to many experts, even if the gun had fired it would have caused only non-lethal injuries.[8] At this point, Dogan struck the arm of the assailant, pushing the arm holding the gun away, and grappled with him for a few moments before falling over. The assailant was then tackled and wrestled to the ground by security guards and delegates, and he was beaten and kicked for several minutes before being arrested. The entire episode was captured on video. The assailant was identified as Oktay Enimehmedov, a Bulgarian national of Turkish descent.[7][9] In February 2014, Enimehmedov received a sentence of three years and six months imprisonment.[10].”
The caption above appears to be copied from Wikipedia, so we searched for news articles from the same date and came across stories by Al Jazeera English, Sky News, and the BBC.
In a report by The Guardian, Oktay Enimehmedov, the attacker, was quoted as saying, “I did not intend to kill Ahmed Dogan. I just intended to scare him. […] I regret only that my gun misfired.” He was handed a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence, according to Reuters.
Dogan subsequently stepped down and Lyutvi Mestan, the party’s then vice-chair, was elected as the chair.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the viral video does not show Netanyahu being attacked; rather, it was an assassination attempt on a Bulgarian politician in 2013.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the video posted here, here, and here on Facebook, here, here, and here on Instagram, here on Threads, and here on X (formerly Twitter).
Conclusion: The video actually shows an assassination attempt on Bulgarian politician Ahmed Dogan in 2013. It is unrelated to Netanyahu.
Background image in cover photo: Netanyahu
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