Israel threatens lawsuit against New York Times over column alleging abuse of Palestinian detainees

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his country’s foreign minister said May 14 that Israel will pursue a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times and columnist Nicholas Kristof over an opinion column alleging Israeli soldiers, prison guards, and settlers sexually abused Palestinian detainees. 

Netanyahu accused the newspaper and Kristof of defaming Israeli soldiers and perpetuating “a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers.” 

He said Israel would “not be silent,” and the “truth will prevail.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry also denounced the column, calling it “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press.”

Kristof’s May 11 column, titled “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,” cites interviews with 14 Palestinian men and women “who said they have been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces” after being detained. The column described alleged abuse, including forced nudity, groping, penetration with objects, and abuse using police dogs. 

Kristof said he gathered the accounts through lawyers, human rights groups, aid workers, and Palestinians in the region. He said some claims were corroborated through social workers, witnesses, and relatives but he could not independently verify every allegation.

“There is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes,” Kristof wrote. “But in recent years they have built a security apparatus where sexual violence has become, as a United Nations report put it last year, one of Israel’s ‘standard operating procedures’ and ‘a major element in the ill treatment of Palestinians.’”

Kristof also cited reports from humanitarian and press-freedom organizations, including a 2025 Save the Children survey in which more than half of the children detained by Israel reported witnessing or experiencing sexual violence. He also cited a Committee to Protect Journalists report that found that 17 of 59 surveyed Palestinian journalists said they endured some form of sexual violence while detained and two said they were raped.

Before Israel announced the lawsuit, Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander defended the column after criticism from Israeli lawmakers, saying it is based on interviews, human rights research, survey data, and UN testimony. The newspaper said Kristof’s work had been fact-checked with independent experts. 

“Nicholas Kristof’s deeply reported piece of opinion journalism starts with a proposition to readers: ‘Whatever our views of the Middle East conflict, we should be able to unite in condemning rape,'” Stadtlander said. “He draws together on-the-record accounts and cites several analyses documenting the practice of sexual violence and abuse conducted by various parts of Israel’s security forces and settlers.”

According to Reuters, Netanyahu similarly threatened to sue the Times in August 2025 over an article about starvation in Gaza, but no lawsuit was filed.

The Times again defended the column after Netanyahu announced the planned legal action. In a May 14 statement on X, Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades called Kristof’s piece a “deeply reported opinion column.” 

Israel’s “threat, similar to one made last year, is part of a well-worn political playbook that aims to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative,” the statement said. “Any such legal claim would be met without merit.”