Overview
- Israel’s government, which announced the order Thursday through Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, plans to sue the New York Times for defamation over a column by Nicholas Kristof.
- Kristof’s opinion piece reported interviews with 14 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank who described sexual assaults by Israeli soldiers, settlers, Shin Bet interrogators, and prison guards, including genital beatings, threats, and humiliating searches.
- The Foreign Ministry rejected the article as false and said it relied on unverified sources tied to networks close to Hamas, while Netanyahu’s office called it one of the most distorted lies printed about Israel.
- The column stated there is no evidence Israeli leaders ordered rapes but cited a United Nations report and a Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor study that described sexual violence against Palestinians as systematic.
- Past cases hang over the dispute, including a 2024 incident at Israel’s Sde Teiman base where prosecutors dropped charges against five reservists after a leaked video surfaced, and officials also argued the NYT piece undercut an Israeli report released Tuesday on sexual violence by Hamas on October 7, 2023.