The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, put into force in 1949, prohibits “cruel treatment and torture” for prisoners of war, while the Fourth Geneva Convention states civilians must be treated humanely and protected from violence, torture, and inhumane treatment. Israel and the United States, however, don’t obey or respect international war.
Following revelations, published in of all places in The New York Times, of sadistic sexual torture, Bibi Netanyahu threatened the newspaper and the journalist Nicholas Kristof. “Today I instructed my legal advisers to consider the harshest legal action against The New York Times and Nicholas Kristof,” Netanyahu posted to X.
“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… We will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law. Truth will prevail.”
Netanyahu would have you believe torture victims and the media are engaged in “blood libel” and perpetuating a conspiracy of lies to harm the “most moral army in the world.” Despite Israel’s supposed outrage over the NYT story, the “shocking incident” of rape in 2024 “was caught on CCTV and later broadcast on Israeli television,” writes Matthew Doran for Australia’s ABC.
The group could be seen dragging a man to the side of a large room at the Sde Teiman facility in southern Israel, before the assault occurred… Some of the reservists shielded what happened next from view, but doctors’ reports detailed the injuries the man sustained as a result of the intense beating. They included a perforated bowel, which required surgery.
An Israeli soldier from Unit 100 admitted on television that he took part in the brutal sexual abuse of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention facility. The soldier, concealing his identity with a ski mask, criticized the airing of rape footage. He insisted “the Israeli army is ‘a very healthy army’ and he was happy the right-wing members of society supported the soldiers when news broke out of the abuse.” Meanwhile, the person who released the footage was arrested and faces a prison term.
Matthew Miller, the spokesperson for the State Department, addressed a question regarding the video that aired on Israel’s most popular commercial station, Channel 12. “We have seen the video, and reports of sexual abuse of detainees are horrific,” Miller said. “There ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee, period,” he added.
Israeli military prosecutors brought charges against soldiers connected to the footage, demonstrating that some of the abuses have documentary and legal evidence. However, in March, Israel dropped all the charges.
“Instead of an Israeli public outcry condemning the incident, thousands of Israeli protesters, accompanied by elected officials, broke into the military facilities, demonstrated outside the jail where the ten soldiers were being held and advocated for the right to rape Palestinian detainees,” the Palestinian Chronicle reported.
In August 2024, the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) revealed that 65 percent of Israeli Jews thought five of the accused rapists should be punished by the army and not face criminal charges. The same INSS poll also revealed that 47 percent of Israeli Jews believe Israel should not obey international law during the course of the war in Gaza.
Despite Netanyahu’s denial, and the corporate media echo chamber discounting reports of rape, there are instances of sexual abuse reported by Palestinian women and girls. “At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” according to Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, and others with the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. In July 2025, the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on Albanese under Executive Order 14203.
Furthermore, since 2024, numerous independent reports and survivor testimonies emerged, presenting evidence of sexual violence inflicted on Palestinian detainees. This includes forced stripping, genital beatings, simulated rape, and “penetrative abuse,” as described by survivors and documented by rights groups and international agencies, according to B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights–Israel.
Claudio Francavilla, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch and its representative to the European Union, stated that Nicholas Kristof’s report aligns with evidence previously documented by Human Rights Watch and other organizations. He emphasized the need for impartial and transparent investigations, fair legal proceedings, and unrestricted access for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and independent monitors for all Israeli detention facilities.
Not surprisingly, the ICRC was denied access to Israeli prisons. Israel has maintained a complete ban on ICRC visits to Palestinian inmates, with the policy upheld by an October 2025 Supreme Court ruling. The Israeli Defense Ministry petitioned Israel’s High Court for a ban on access “because visits harm state security,” Haaretz reported.
On May 13, The New York Times issued a statement “affirming its support for Nicholas Kristof’s controversial op-ed,” The Jerusalem Post reported. Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for The New York Times, stated:
The accounts of the 14 men and women he interviewed were corroborated with other witnesses, whenever possible, and with people the victims confided in — that includes family members and lawyers. Details were extensively fact-checked, with accounts further cross- referenced with news reporting, independent research from human-rights groups, surveys and in one case, with U.N. testimony. Independent experts were consulted on the assertions in the piece throughout reporting and fact-checking.
Netanyahu demands we discount reports by the United Nations, the ICRC, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, and above all the victims cited by the NYT as nothing more than “blood libel” and a collective hatred of Jews. Chris Hedges, a journalist and Presbyterian minister, writes in “Israel’s Culture of Deceit,” the Zionist project is “sustained by lies.”
Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians are always greeted with lies. I heard them. I recorded them. I published them in my stories for The New York Times when I was the paper’s Middle East Bureau Chief… Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic regimes. It does not deform the truth, it inverts it. It paints a picture that is diametrically opposed to reality.
Article posted with permission from Kurt Nimmo
