Ramla Magistrate’s Court President Menachem Mizrahi ordered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to submit his medical file so the court can determine when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, as part of defamation lawsuits Netanyahu filed against journalist Uri Misgav and activist Gonen Ben Yitzhak.
Mizrahi said the file must be delivered in a sealed and secured envelope for his review only. It must be accompanied by a signed letter from Netanyahu’s personal physician, Dr. Zvi Herman Berkowitz, confirming that it is the prime minister’s updated medical file and that it reflects his current medical and health condition.
The judge also requested the original medical document showing the date on which Netanyahu’s prostate cancer was discovered.
Mizrahi said that during the evidentiary stage, and after Netanyahu testifies in the lawsuit he filed against Misgav and Ben Yitzhak over what he says were lies about his health, he will decide whether to summon Prof. Aron Popovtzer, head of the oncology department at Hadassah Medical Center, and Berkowitz to testify.
The order comes about two weeks after the Prime Minister’s Office released Netanyahu’s annual health report, which disclosed that he had undergone surgery to remove a cancerous tumor and received radiation treatments.
“On Dec. 29, 2024, the prime minister underwent a surgical procedure for benign prostate enlargement,” the report said. “The procedure was successful and without complications. In an MRI performed as part of routine follow-up after the surgery, a tiny focus, less than a centimeter, with suspicious characteristics was seen in the prostate.”
Since the treatment was disclosed, Netanyahu’s office has not provided a full timeline of the process and has not answered questions about apparent gaps and conflicting accounts.
Netanyahu said when the report was published that he had asked to delay the medical report by two months “so that it would not be published at the height of the war and would not allow the Iranian terror regime to spread more false propaganda against Israel.”
But Popovtzer, one of Netanyahu’s doctors, said the treatment Netanyahu underwent took place about three months earlier, before the war that began on Feb. 28.
Public broadcaster Kan also reported that Netanyahu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in October last year, nearly six months before the start of the war. Netanyahu’s office has not officially said when he was diagnosed.
“I underwent focused treatment that removed the problem and left no trace of it,” Netanyahu said. “I came in for a few short treatments, read a book and continued working. The spot disappeared completely. Thank God, I beat this too.”
If Netanyahu was diagnosed in October last year, the diagnosis would have come about six months after his medical file was submitted to Mizrahi as part of a defamation lawsuit Netanyahu filed over claims that he had pancreatic cancer or another medical condition that had not been disclosed to the public.