The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday denounced the timing of an op-ed published in the New York Times, while the outlet decided not to publish the findings of Israel's Civil Commission into Hamas's systemic violence during, and since, the October 7 massacre.
The commission approached NYT "months ago" with the outlet saying it "was not interested" in reporting it, the ministry noted on X/Twitter.
The outlet posted the opinion piece on Monday, featuring it prominently on its homepage, along with an accompanying video, deciding to publish it the day before the Commission's findings were released.
Several international outlets reported the Commission's findings on Tuesday morning, the ministry noted, with NYT being an apparent outlier.
"Aware of the report and its release date, the night before its release, the NYT ran a shameful attack on Israel, belittling Hamas’ sexual crimes. That tells you everything about the NYT's agenda," the ministry wrote on X.
'One of worst blood libels to appear in modern press,' Foreign Ministry says
The ministry, in a previous X post on Monday, denounced the op-ed, calling it "one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press."
"In an unfathomable inversion of reality, and through an endless stream of baseless lies, propagandist Nicholas Kristof turns the victim into the accused," the ministry wrote.
"Israel - whose citizens were the victims of the most horrific sexual crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, and whose hostages were later subjected to further sexual abuse - is portrayed as the guilty party," the ministry continued.
"This publication is no coincidence. It is part of a false and well-orchestrated anti-Israel campaign aimed at placing Israel on the UN Secretary-General’s blacklist," the ministry said.
"Israel will fight these lies with the truth - and the truth will prevail," the ministry concluded.
Israel's Ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, also denounced the NYT and the author, saying, "Don't buy into their blood libels."
Author supposedly wrote opinion piece from West Bank
The op-ed, written from the West Bank, according to the dateline, claimed that "Palestinians have recounted to [the author] a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women, and even children - by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency, and, above all, prison guards."
Kristof admitted that "there is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes," but claimed that the security apparatus has created a culture in which "sexual violence has become one of Israel's 'standard operating procedures.'"
He wrote his op-ed based on "conversations with 14 men and women who said they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces."
He cited one alleged prisoner who claimed that Israel Prison Service officers forced items up his rectum.
Another alleged prisoner from Gaza claimed that he was "held down, stripped naked, and as he was blindfolded and handcuffed, a dog was summoned," before the dog attempted to "mount him."
The US is "complicit" in the alleged sexual violence as "American tax dollars subsidize the Israeli security establishment," he said.
"I've spent some time reporting on widespread rape and other sexual violence of Palestinian male and female prisoners by Israeli authorities, and the article is now published. The assault victims were warned not to give speak of what they endured -- they were sometimes told they would be killed or raped if they gave interviews -- but they found the courage to do so," the author wrote on X when the op-ed was published.
"One man described being raped three times in a single day in Israeli prison, the third time after he tried to protest. A young woman said the guards would come in at the beginning of each shift and strip her naked and abuse her. Another reported that she was shown photos of herself being raped and warned they would be released unless she cooperated with Israeli intelligence," he added.
"Even three children who had been detained told me they had been sexually abused. Look, whatever our position on the Middle East, we should be able to agree on being anti-rape. Sexual assaults were horrific when Israeli women were targeted on Oct. 7, and they're equally horrific when Israeli authorities use them against Palestinians day after day after day. We should be able to find common ground in opposing rape," he continued, while offering a subscription-free link to the article.
Critics downplay validity, legitimacy of author's sources
However, activists from both Israel and Palestinian society have downplayed the validity of the author's sources, claiming heavy bias and a lack of accuracy.
Gazan-born anti-Hamas activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib wrote on X that while he believes that sexual abuse did occur in Israeli prisons, "some cited entities and individuals, including the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor and Shaiel Ben Ephraim, have troubling records on accuracy, conduct, and associations."
"They are not credible sources, even if the article relied on others as well. Many Palestinian testimonies were anonymous due to shame and fear of retaliation for reporting sexual torture, which complicates verification but does not automatically invalidate their claims," Alkhatib added.
"This reporting must not be weaponized to stoke antisemitism or collective blame. These are alleged acts by individuals, not an indictment of all Israelis or the Jewish people," he concluded.
The Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor investigated ties between "the worst and most cited NGO, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor," and Hamas terrorists.
The organization shared photographs of Euro-Med Monitor's founder, Ramy Adbu, at a 2013 panel alongside Hamas leader Osama Hamdan.
Abdu was identified by Israel as one of Hamas's "main operatives and institutions in Europe," NGO Monitor wrote.
He had stated that "Israel has an insatiable appetite for drinking the blood of Palestinian children," according to the watchdog.
Abdu and Mazen Awni Issa Kahel, Euro-Med Monitor's chair from 2015 until 2019, were pictured alongside Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh in 2011.
Further, Euro-Med Monitor's Chief of Programmes and Communications, Muhammad Shehada, made an X post smiling alongside Haniyeh.
NGO Monitor also criticized Save the Children, saying that the op-ed claims to have surveyed minors who were "between 12 and 17 years old when they were detained." Those surveyed, if the events claimed even occurred, likely included child soldiers who were recruited and trained by Hamas and other terror groups to carry out attacks, NGO Monitor said.
Additionally, the Committee to Project Journalists, which the op-ed's author called "a respected American organization," has a history of "laundering terrorists as 'journalists' and being forced to remove neutralized terrorists from its list of journalists killed in Gaza," NGO Monitor said.