Benjamin Netanyahu instructed his legal advisers “to consider the harshest legal action” against the newspaper and journalist who reported the story from the occupied West Bank.
Israel plans to sue The New York Times and one of its journalists for defamation over an article that said Israeli soldiers, prison guards and settlers had used widespread sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he had instructed his legal advisers “to consider the harshest legal action” against the newspaper and Nicholas Kristof, a veteran journalist who reported the story from the occupied West Bank.
“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 said in a statement.
“We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law. Truth will prevail,” he added.
The United Nations and rights groups say they have documented the use of sexual violence by both Israel and Hamas since the militant Palestinian group’s assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered Israel’s war in Gaza.
Netanyahu did not say where or when the lawsuit would be filed. He also threatened to sue the newspaper last August over an article about starvation in Gaza but did not follow through.
The Times did not immediately respond on Thursday to a request for comment on Netanyahu’s threat.
In a statement on Wednesday that followed criticism from Israeli lawmakers, the newspaper defended Kristof’s article, which includes testimony by a Palestinian saying he was raped by a dog. Israel rejects this.
“The accounts of the 14 men and women [Kristof] interviewed were corroborated with other witnesses, when possible, and with people the victims confided in – that includes family members and lawyers,” newspaper spokesman Charlie Stadtlander wrote, adding that “details were extensively fact-checked”.
In his article, Kristof, who writes for the newspaper’s opinion section, wrote: “(Our) American tax dollars subsidize the Israeli security establishment, so this is sexual violence in which the United States is complicit.”
