Israel will take legal action against The New York Times over a column penned by Nicholas Kristof, which included allegations of serious sexual abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a Thursday statement.
The PMO, which referred to the accusation as “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar instructed officials to begin preparing a defamation lawsuit against the publication.
“They defamed the soldiers of Israel and perpetuated a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers,” Netanyahu wrote on X/Twitter.
“Under my leadership, Israel will not be silent.”
Netanyahu has previously accused international outlets of amplifying false claims about Israel’s conduct in Gaza, telling foreign media in August that “Hamas lies” were being repeated abroad.
The planned lawsuit would focus on whether statements in the article crossed the legal threshold from opinion or criticism into actionable defamation. It was not immediately clear where the lawsuit would be filed, what damages would be sought, or whether Israeli state institutions or individual officials would be listed as plaintiffs.
On Wednesday, the New York Times issued a statement affirming its support for Kristof’s controversial op-ed, saying 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.”
His “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,'” the news outlet stated.
“The accounts of the 14 men and women he interviewed were corroborated with other witnesses, whenever possible, and with people the victims confided in – that includes family members and lawyers,” the outlet said.