Israel Can Sue NYT Over Rape Allegations, But Can't Erase Truth

New York Times headquarters. (Screenshot)

A constitutional law professor told Haaretz: ‘The burden of proof on the plaintiff in a case like this is extraordinary’

By Etan Nechin, reposted from Haaretz, May 14, 2026

NEW YORK – Israel said Thursday it ordered the launch of defamation proceedings against The New York Times over a column it published this week by journalist Nicholas Kristof, alleging the widespread sexual abuse of Palestinians by Israeli prison guards, soldiers and settlers.

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar described the piece as “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have instructed the initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) May 14, 2026

The column includes testimonies from Palestinian men and women who describe in detail the sexual violence committed against them by Israeli security personnel, including soldiers, prison guards in detention centers, as well as settlers in the West Bank. The report also alleged that Israeli forces trained combat dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners on the command of their handlers.

Netanyahu wrote on X that he instructed his legal advisers “to consider the harshest legal action,” adding that the report “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.”

Today I instructed my legal advisers to consider the harshest legal action against The New York Times and Nicholas Kristof.

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…

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) May 14, 2026

“We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law,” he wrote on X.

The validity of Israel’s suit, however, is already in doubt. “If you’re asking me whether the State of Israel could sue The New York Times, I don’t think so,” Cardozo Constitutional Law professor David Rudenstine told Haaretz.

“Libel lawsuits are for individuals whose reputations have been harmed. The idea of libel is that you are injuring a person’s reputation to an extent that causes them real financial harm,” he said, adding that the suit would need to instead be brought under the name of an individual, like Netanyahu or another Israeli official, as a public official under the law.

“It would be Netanyahu v. The New York Times, just like Donald Trump suing The New York Times,” said Rudenstine.

Even still, Rudenstine said the case would be hard to make. “The burden of proof on the plaintiff in a case like this is extraordinary,” adding that to win, the individual would need to “prove that The New York Times published the information either knowing it was false or in reckless disregard of the truth.”

The Times wrote in a statement on Wednesday, in response to backlash from the piece, that the details were “extensively fact-checked, with accounts further cross-referenced with news reporting, independent research from human-rights groups, surveys, and in one case, UN testimony.”

pic.twitter.com/wXROg0OIwE

— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) May 13, 2026

Rudenstine said that The Times “does not have to prove that it was true. They just have to prove they published it believing it was true and without reckless disregard of the truth. It could turn out they made a mistake. “

This precedent was set in the landmark 1964 case New York Times v. Sullivan, in which an Alabama police commissioner sued The Times over an advertisement soliciting funds for Martin Luther King Jr.’s legal defense that contained minor factual errors about police conduct toward civil rights protesters.

The statements did turn out to be inaccurate, but he lost anyway, because the court ruled that public officials must prove a publisher acted with “actual malice,” not just error.

Israel has made numerous threats to sue news outlets, including The New York Times last year over a story about starvation in Gaza. But in 1985, an Israeli official actually followed through on the threat. Ariel Sharon, then industry and trade minister, sued TIME Magazine over a paragraph claiming he had, while serving as defense minister in 1982, discussed revenge with Phalangist leaders before the Sabra and Shatila massacre during the Lebanon war.

The jury found the paragraph false and defamatory, but ruled for TIME Magazine because Sharon couldn’t prove the magazine knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.

In Rudenstine’s view, “Netanyahu may be doing nothing more than what Donald Trump does, which is deny things that are reported about you. You don’t particularly care whether you win or lose, because what you’re doing is bringing a lawsuit that harms the outlet.”

Etan Nechin is Haaretz’s New York correspondent.

Israel and its supporters can protest as long and as loudly as they like. Experts who painstakingly researched, documented, and reported on the facts have been saying for 2-1/2 years have not deviated from their findings: There was no systematic sexual violence on October 7th, 2023. Here is one of the recent statements by the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls.

Reem Alsalem, United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, on 23 November 2022 (UN Women / Flickr)

UN expert says claims of systematic sexual violence on 7 October remain unverified as Israel releases new report

Reposted from Middle East Monitor

A new Israeli report alleging that Hamas used sexual violence as a “weapon of war” during the 7 October attacks is facing renewed scrutiny after a senior United Nations official said there is no independent evidence for the Israeli claim.

“It is my understanding that neither the [UN] Commission nor any other independent human rights mechanism established that sexual or gender-based violence was committed against Israelis on or since the 7 October as a systematic tool of war or as a tool of genocide,” said Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, in a statement.

Alsalem’s remarks came in response to the publication of “A Quest for Justice,” a new report authored by Israeli legal and gender experts under the Dinah Project, which claims that sexual violence was a coordinated tactic used by Hamas during its 7 October incursion into southern Israel.

The authors say they gathered evidence from at least 17 incidents of sexual assault, including cases involving rape, mutilation, forced nudity, and alleged sexual abuse of hostages during captivity in Gaza. It also claims male hostages experienced “sexual humiliation” and calls on the UN to designate Hamas as an organisation that systematically employs sexual violence in warfare.

However, international experts have cautioned against accepting such claims without independent verification. Alsalem noted that although the UN Commission of Inquiry had “found patterns indicative of sexual violence against Israeli women at different locations,” it was “unable to independently verify specific allegations… due to Israel’s obstruction of its investigations.”

Hamas has denied committing any sexual crimes during the attack, which left over 1,200 Israelis dead. However, a significant number of those fatalities are believed to have resulted from Israel’s use of the so-called “Hannibal Directive”—a controversial military protocol designed to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers or civilians, even at the cost of their lives. During the 7 October attack, the directive was reportedly invoked in multiple locations, including at the Nova music festival and several military outposts, where Israeli forces fired heavy weaponry at sites where hostages were being held or had sought refuge.”

In March, the UN Human Rights Council released a separate report documenting Israel’s “systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other gender-based violence” since its assault on Gaza began. Titled “More than a human can bear,” the report concluded that Israel’s attacks have disproportionately targeted women and children, and that the destruction of healthcare and civilian infrastructure has inflicted severe gender-based harm on the population.

Since 7 October, Israel’s military assault on Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials. UN agencies and human rights experts have repeatedly accused Israel of targeting civilians and of possible war crimes, including the use of starvation as a weapon.