Netanyahu posts atomic blast image over Tel Aviv two days before Israeli election

Netanyahu's post

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published an image on his X account on Sunday, 25 October, showing a nuclear explosion over Tel Aviv. One outlet describes the picture as AI-generated. He shared a post by writer Yuval Blumberg, also spelled Bloomberg in some reports, which says Israel faces a real and concrete existential threat. The shared text argues that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, nothing else would matter. It says Israel has two more years of Donald Trump's US presidency to finish the job with Iran, and that after that it is impossible to predict whether someone like Kamala Harris or a figure like Mamdani will take over. The image and message appeared in the final stage of the campaign, in which Netanyahu has repeatedly put the Iranian threat at the top of Israel's security priorities.

Campaign framing

The post presents the danger from Iran as more important than Israel's domestic disputes. It describes debates over Qatar, the ultra-Orthodox community and military conscription as a smokescreen, and refers to the Qatargate scandal, in which some Netanyahu aides, including Jonathan Urich, are involved. Netanyahu, who chairs the right-wing Likud party, also wrote that voters worried about their physical survival should vote with a trembling hand for someone able to carry out the task. The remark was apparently aimed at renewed action against Iran, and he warned that such voters would expose themselves and their families to the danger of a second Holocaust.

Opposition response

Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of the Israeli army general staff who leads the Democrats party, accused Netanyahu of trying to frighten voters. Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief who leads the centrist Yashar party and is Netanyahu's main rival, called the prime minister hysterical. In a post on X he accused Netanyahu of lying and scaremongering, and said Netanyahu had failed to reach his war goals against Iran. Eisenkot added that Netanyahu would be replaced after the election.

Election context

Israelis vote on Tuesday, 27 October, two days after the post. Polls cited before the vote put Netanyahu's right-religious bloc at around 50 seats, well short of the 61 of 120 Knesset seats needed for a governing majority. The opposition bloc was put at 52 to 56 seats, and the Arab parties could add another 14 to 16 seats. Reports say tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad are returning to vote against him.

Iran's response

Tehran denies plans to rearm with nuclear weapons. Separately, two Iranian officials, one of them a member of the Revolutionary Guard, told the New York Times that Tehran's expanded list of targets in case of an attack includes diplomats and American personnel.