In his 3,700-word article, headlined The Silence that Meets the Rape of Palestinians, Kristof wrote that “there is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes. But in recent years they have built a security apparatus where sexual violence has become, as a United Nations report put it last year, one of Israel’s ‘standard operating procedures’ and ‘a major element in the ill treatment of Palestinians’.”
Kristof said his reporting was “based on conversations with 14 men and women who said they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces”. The article carried first-person descriptions by alleged victims of sexual abuse, including rape and assault with objects.
It also included a claim by an unnamed person who Kristof said was a Gaza journalist that he was raped by a dog on the command of the dog’s handler.
There have been extensive reports in recent years, including by Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, which have compiled evidence of sexual violence used against Palestinian detainees.
Last year, two Palestinian men separately told the BBC they were sexually abused while in detention. One of the men said a dog was used to sexually humiliate him.
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