Benjamin Netanyahu Was NOT named ‘Killer of The Year’ by TIME Magazine!

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The humanitarian crisis continues to worsen in Gaza; international organisations are continuously calling for an end to the violence and a peaceful resolution to the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ongoing situation has led to a negative portrayal of both Israel and Hamas and their leaders.

Some critics accuse the PM of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, of using excessive military aggression in Gaza, leading to a negative portrayal of his leadership in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In this background, an image targeting Benjamin Netanyahu went viral, falsely linking to Time magazine. Let’s look at the claim first.

Social Media Posts

A viral WhatsApp image claimed that the famous ‘TIME magazine’ had featured Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, on its cover page as the ‘Killer of the Year 2023’

The same claim was widely shared among Facebook users as well.

Facebook | Archived Here is an instance of the post getting shared on X.

Fact Check:

‘TIME Magazine’ identifies individuals who most shaped the headlines over the previous 12 months, for better or for worse. Accordingly, TIME has chosen famous singer and songwriter Taylor Swift as Person of the Year, World Cup-winning football icon Lionel Messi as Athlete of the Year, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as CEO of the Year 2023. More on this here.

However, there is no mention of ‘TIME’ magazine choosing a personality as ‘Killer of the Year’ for the past 12 months or any of the previous years, let alone bestowing that infamous title to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

We also did a reverse image search of the purported magazine cover, yet we could not find the origins of the exact image.

Next, we checked the possibility of the image being created using Artificial Technology. Several tools, such as the Hive Moderation tool, indicate the possibility of the cover page with Benjamin Netanyahu being created using AI, as seen below.