The video, released Monday night, shows Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and leader of Yashar’s party, running with open arms toward a young man depicted as a symbol of Israeli unity. At the last moment, he changed direction and hugged Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas instead.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s AI video sparks outrage over figure resembling Eisenkot’s fallen son
The video does not identify the young man as Gal Eisenkot. However, many social media users said the figure immediately reminded them of Eisenkot’s late son, sparking sharp criticism of Netanyahu and Likud.
Einav Zangaukar, whose son Matan was held hostage by Hamas for 738 days, wrote that when he first saw Eisenkot running with open arms, he imagined Gul running towards his father.
“A hug like that would have warmed my heart,” she wrote. “But what was I thinking? This is Netanyahu and his agitation machine.”
Gil Dickman, whose cousin Carmel Gatto was killed in a Hamas captivity, shared a photo of Gatto with other hostages who were killed together in the Gaza tunnels, writing: “Benjamin, this is not all of us, and it still isn’t.”
Former Likud Minister Rimol Livnat also condemned the video.
“Poor Bibi,” she wrote. “Arthur Finkelstein would never have approved a video like this about a rival whose son fell in a war you managed and failed while your own son was in Miami. How far can you fall? Shame on you.”
Avi Benayahu, a former Israeli Defense Forces spokesman, said the video was a disparagement of Netanyahu himself.
He resembled his son Gul, who was killed in Gaza.
“Prime Minister, this is an insult. To you. This is humiliating. To you. This hurts you. It will hurt you,” he wrote. “Look again at this horrifying and monstrous video about your late father Eisenkot. Did you really release this?”
The controversy was also covered in the New York Times.
In response to the backlash, Netanyahu and Likud released a second version of the video, replacing the young man with a woman.
“There are shocking attempts by extremists online to create false conspiracy theories to cover up a simple truth,” Netanyahu wrote alongside the doctored video. “There is no Gadi Eisenkot government without Arab parties and Yair Golan.”
Jonathan Urich, an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also shared the revised version, writing, “For the avoidance of doubt.”
The replaced video maintained Likud’s original political message while removing the persona viewers had associated with Gal Eisenkot.
