Netanyahu and cancer.. Controversy over the “real date” of the diagnosis

After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and had recovered from it through radiation therapy, controversy erupted in the country over the actual date the illness was discovered and why it was not disclosed at the time.

Netanyahu’s office has yet to provide a full timeline of the procedure he underwent or answer questions about discrepancies regarding the dates of diagnosis, treatment, and announcement.

On Friday, Netanyahu said he had asked for the publication of his medical report to be delayed by two months “so that it would not be released at the height of the war with Iran,” and “so as not to give the terrorist regime in Iran an opportunity to spread more false propaganda against Israel,” as he put it.

However, his doctor, Aharon Popovtzer, said the treatment took place two and a half months ago, meaning before the outbreak of the war that began on February 28.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (KAN) reported that Netanyahu’s prostate cancer was diagnosed in early October of last year, about six months before the war broke out.

The Israeli prime minister’s office has not officially announced the date of the diagnosis.

Netanyahu said: “I underwent targeted treatment that removed the problem completely without leaving any trace. I attended short treatment sessions, read a book, and continued my work. The spot disappeared completely.”

According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, if Netanyahu was diagnosed last October, that would have been about six months after he submitted his medical file to Menachem Mizrahi, chief judge of the Central Magistrate’s Court, as part of a defamation lawsuit Netanyahu filed over claims that he had pancreatic cancer or another undisclosed medical condition.

The lawsuit described those claims as “malicious and ill-intentioned lies,” and said Netanyahu was “in completely good health for his age.”

According to the account presented by Netanyahu, on December 29, 2024, he underwent surgery to remove an enlarged prostate, after which his doctors stated that “there was nothing to indicate the presence of a malignant tumor or cancer.”

Nearly one year and four months have passed since then, during which Netanyahu underwent a follow-up MRI scan whose results indicated the presence of a cancerous tumor, and he also underwent radiation treatment, though it remains unclear when these treatments took place, despite his saying they consisted of “a few sessions.”

The Prime Minister’s Office said on Friday that no spread of cancer cells had been found and that the tumor was very small.

In such cases, close monitoring may be sufficient, or a short, targeted course of radiation therapy may be used. Netanyahu chose radiation treatment, according to his office, which added that the treatment, led by Popovtzer in cooperation with doctors Mark Vigoda and Shraga Gross, “was completely successful, with the disease disappearing entirely, as shown by all imaging tests and laboratory analyses.”

But the information contained in the health report was not published as an official document from Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. Rather, it was written on plain paper without a logo, signed by the doctors on Tuesday, and lacked the official stamps customary on medical documents, sparking further controversy in Israel.

The document was dated April 20, four days before Netanyahu’s announcement.

The hospital said that “the document issued by Netanyahu’s office is signed by three senior doctors and is part of the prime minister’s health declaration. Over the years, Hadassah Medical Center has published nothing but the truth, and the public has been informed of his hospital admissions with the required transparency.”