Israel is preparing legal action against The New York Times after the newspaper published an article describing the rapes of Palestinian prisoners in its custody.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) announced its decision to sue on X on Thursday, after the paper doubled down in its defence of the report.
“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,'” a spokesperson for The New York Times said.
Kristof’s story contained harrowing testimonies of the rape of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, which included accounts of prisoners being mounted by dogs, penetrated by carrots, and rectums torn by batons.
Israeli influencers and politicians responded to the accounts by claiming that the New York Times was perpetuating a blood libel – or an antisemitic canard, used to justify the slaughter of Jews in Europe during the medieval and early modern era.
Read more: Israel to sue New York Times over article describing its rape of Palestinians
