Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday, May 14 that Israel will file a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times and one of its journalists over a report concerning sexual violence against Palestinian detainees.
According to Reuters, Netanyahu said in a statement that he had instructed his legal advisers “to consider the harshest legal action,” including against the Times and senior columnist Nicholas Kristof.
Kristof has long contributed opinion pieces to the Times. In a recent report filed from the occupied West Bank, Kristof alleged that Israeli soldiers, prison guards, and Jewish settlers committed acts of sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli has been criticized for its military conduct in military operations against Gaza, the Palestinian strip of land between Israel and Egypt, following the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks that left over 1,000 Israeli civilians dead. Over 60,000 Gaza residents are estimated to have died as a result of ongoing hostilities since then.
Agence France-Presse reported that Netanyahu strongly condemned the content of the Times report, calling it “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press.”
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He claimed that the report defamed Israeli soldiers and said it amounted to spreading “blood libel about rape.”
They are “trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers,” he said.
Netanyahu also stated that Israel would respond to these claims both in the “court of public opinion” and in “legal courts.”
“We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law. Truth will prevail,” he said.
However, Netanyahu did not specify when or in which country or jurisdiction the lawsuit would be filed.
This is not the first time Netanyahu has threatened legal action against The New York Times. According to the New York Post, in August last year, he also warned of potential litigation over a report about famine in Gaza, but no lawsuit was ultimately filed.
