TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A video claiming Israel bombed Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's hideout was shared on Instagram [archive], Facebook, and TikTok in January 2026.
The video shows a building on top of a hill that was destroyed being bombarded multiple times. “The Iran bunker, the hideout of the Iranian president, was bombed by Israel. The body of the Iranian president has not been found,” wrote the content uploader.
But is the circulating video really showing a supposed bombing that killed Iran's President?
FACT CHECK
Tempo verified the content using reverse image search and compared it with credible sources. Based on these sources, there was no bombing that killed Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Anadolu Agency reports, based on information derived from the Tasnim news agency, that Masoud remained in office as of February 2, 2026. He had issued an order for his subordinates to start negotiations with the United States on nuclear infrastructure development.
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, and several other senior officials from both countries will carry out the order, which came under U.S. President Donald Trump's insistence that the two countries immediately open nuclear talks. The United States has even deployed a large fleet to the Middle East to follow up on the plan.
At the tail end of January 2026, CNBC also reported that Masoud was making active public statements. In one of them, he accused Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Europe of triggering riots in Iran that have claimed more than 5,000 lives.
Video Verification
Verification results show that the circulating video has no connection to the Iranian president. A number of media outlets, such as Sindonews and Today.it, published similar footage in December 2025 as documentation of the conflict between Thailand and Cambodia.
Several Facebook accounts in Khmer, Tea KH, and Thai, ?????? ???????????, also claimed that the video was showing Cambodian military forces blowing up a Thai government building on the border area between the two countries.
Tempo reported that the fighting between the two countries broke out on December 8, 2025. In the first three days of the conflict, 13 people were killed—including soldiers and civilians—while another 400,000 were forced to flee.
The governments of both countries passed the buck on who was responsible for triggering the conflict. Thailand accused Cambodia of launching an attack near Phanom Dong Rak Hospital in Surin, while Cambodian media reported that Thailand deployed F-16 fighter jets to attack targets on the border. Thai media outlet The Nation reported that Thai rockets and artillery fire targeted 12 points in the border area.
The situation in Iran
The unrest in Iran differs from the Thailand-Cambodia conflict. Early in 2026, protests broke out in Iran over price hikes that led to riots and killed more than 5,000 people.
Iranian Ambassador to Indonesia Mohammad Boroujerdi claimed that the situation in his country was conducive on January 19, 2026, at the Secretariat of the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI) in Jakarta, as reported by Tempo. Boroujerdi accused Israel of turning peaceful protests into a wave of riots, adding that Western economic sanctions had triggered financial difficulties that sparked the demonstrations in the first place.
Donald Trump had planned to use force on the Iranian government to prevent the killing of protesters, and the threats stood despite the riots subsiding.
Reuters and BBC reports said the United States had deployed a large military force to the Middle East until the end of January 2026, including an aircraft carrier and six destroyers such as the USS Delbert D. Black. A number of fighter jets and E-11A surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft are also on standby at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Responding to the deployment, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei accused the United States of aiming to seize the country's oil and gas resources through military threats. Al Jazeera reported Khamenei's warning about the risk of a regional war. “They should know that if they start a war this time, it will be a regional war,” said the 86-year-old man.
Ali Khamenei became Iran's leader, succeeding the role of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who died in 1989. His predecessor had previously seized Iran from the U.S.-backed regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979.
CONCLUSION
Tempo's verification concludes that the claim of Israel bombing the hideout and killing Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, with his body remaining missing, is false.
TEMPO FACT-CHECK TEAM
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