On May 11, 2026, Nicholas Kristof published an article in the New York Times accusing Israel of carrying out widespread rape, sexual torture, and abuse against Palestinian detainees — men, women, and even children. He described batons, vegetables, dogs, and genital beatings as though they were routine features of Israeli detention policy.

The claims are so thinly sourced and weakly substantiated that it almost seems the Times’ own editors understood the problem — perhaps explaining why the piece was placed in the Opinion section rather than reported as news.

Where Is the Evidence?

Kristof’s case rests largely on hearsay from 14 Palestinians, many of them anonymous and nearly all connected in some way to Hamas — a terrorist organization with a long record of propaganda and disinformation. He also cites Sami al-Sai, a so-called freelance journalist known for promoting Hamas narratives. Al-Sai openly celebrated the October 7th mass rape and slaughter of Israeli men and women.

Even Kristof concedes that many of the allegations are difficult or impossible to verify, supposedly because of “shame” and missing evidence. Yet he publishes the graphic accusations anyway, presenting them to readers as part of a broader pattern of systemic abuse.

One of the most grotesque claims in the article — that Israel trains dogs to rape Palestinian detainees — traces back to pro-Palestinian activist Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, an accused sexual abuser who has himself admitted the allegation could not be verified. There is not a shred of credible evidence supporting the existence of any systematic program involving “trained rape dogs,” and the scenario itself is inherently implausible as a repeatable, controlled practice given basic canine biology and behavior.

Then there are the shifting stories.

Kristof leans heavily on Hebron activist Issa Amro. But Amro’s account has evolved over time. In February 2024, the Washington Post reported that Amro said he was threatened with sexual assault during a 10-hour detention on October 7. In Kristof’s New York Times piece, however, Amro is presented as an already-established victim of sexual assault.

That is a major shift — from “threatened” to unquestioned “victim” — without any explanation to readers about what supposedly changed, when it changed, or why.

The article also leans heavily on organizations like Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a group with documented ties to Hamas and a long history of extreme, unverified accusations against Israel. In June 2024, the organization itself promoted the same lurid allegation echoed in Kristof’s article: that Israel “trains dogs to rape prisoners.”

Kristof further cites a UN report from last year that allegedly documented systematic rape against Palestinians — a report that has already been thoroughly challenged and debunked.

Compare all of this to the evidence surrounding the October 7 Hamas attacks. In that case, the world saw videos filmed by the terrorists themselves, eyewitness testimony, forensic evidence, survivor accounts, and physical documentation. By contrast, Kristof’s accusations rely almost entirely on post-release stories, activist summaries, and anonymous or uncorroborated claims. No hard proof like photos, videos, or forensic evidence. 

If Israel were truly carrying out the kind of systematic rape and sexual torture Kristof alleges, one would expect compelling physical evidence to exist. Yet none has been produced. 

In fact, the evidence points in the opposite direction. Some activists and academics have gone so far as to argue that Israeli soldiers’ relative lack of widespread sexual violence against Palestinians is evidence of racism — claiming Israelis must view Palestinians as too “inferior” or “disgusting” to rape. In other words, Israel has perversely been accused of racism not because its soldiers systematically rape Palestinians, but because they do not.

The Propaganda Game

Hamas and pro-Palestinian groups have every incentive to flood international media with sexual abuse allegations. They understand that almost any accusation against Israel will be amplified unquestioningly by the UN, activist networks, and large segments of the international press — much like the false “genocide” and “famine” narratives.

These claims generate sympathy abroad, increase diplomatic pressure on Israel at the UN and ICC, and divert attention from Hamas’s own atrocities. In a war saturated with propaganda, anonymous testimony is easy to manufacture and nearly impossible to conclusively disprove.

The Double Standard

Kristof laments what he describes as “silence” surrounding Palestinian victims while contrasting it with the global outrage over October 7. The opposite is true.

Palestinian allegations already receive extensive coverage across outlets like the New York Times, BBC, Al Jazeera, and UN institutions. Meanwhile, Hamas’s documented rapes and sexual mutilations are routinely minimized, softened, disputed, or ignored outright by many of the same circles.

And the problem extends beyond Hamas itself.

Sexual violence and the failure to properly address it remain serious problems within Palestinian society. According to the U.S. State Department, neither the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria nor Hamas in Gaza effectively enforces rape laws. The Palestinian Authority lacks a specific law criminalizing sexual harassment, despite harassment reportedly being widespread in both Gaza and the West Bank. Women who report sexual abuse are often blamed by Palestinian authorities for provoking the behavior.

Domestic violence enforcement is similarly weak. Palestinian NGOs have reported that many women avoid reporting abuse because they fear retaliation or believe authorities will do nothing. Roughly one in five Palestinian women has reported physical abuse by a husband, with significantly higher rates of spousal abuse reported in Gaza than in Judea and Samaria. Yet neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority faces sustained international pressure to address these problems transparently.

In fact, both Palestinian governing authorities are notoriously opaque about crime and rape statistics. Searches for Palestinian crime data frequently produce pages focused not on violence within Palestinian society, but on accusations against Israelis. International institutions and activist groups that obsessively catalogue alleged Israeli abuses show far less interest in documenting violence, abuse, or systemic failures inside Palestinian society itself.

On April 26, 2026, the Daily Mail reported that children in Gaza were being sexually abused and exploited as a method of recruitment into Hamas. According to the report, children attending mosques were allegedly assaulted by clerics or religious figures and then coerced into silence through fear, shame, and blackmail, including threats that the abuse would be exposed publicly if they refused to cooperate with the terrorist organization.

Another report from April 2026 documented Hamas’s alleged sexual exploitation of Gazan women seeking food or financial aid from charity organizations.

None of this received a single mention in Kristof’s article.

The Bottom Line

Kristof’s piece is not a serious investigation. It is Hamas propaganda masquerading as moral journalism — inflating weakly sourced allegations into a sweeping indictment of an entire country and military.

Serious accusations require serious evidence: forensic documentation, independent verification, corroboration, and consistent evidentiary standards. Kristof offers none of that. What readers are left with instead are activist press releases, anonymous testimony, shifting stories, and claims that cannot be independently verified.

Until that evidentiary bar is met, these allegations should be treated for what they appear to be: another front in the propaganda war against Israel, not established fact.

But at this point, few people expect better from the New York Times.

Sources

New York Times, Honest Reporting, X, Daily Bruin, UN, Israel Truth Network, Israel National News, Israel National News, FrontPage Mag, Daniel Friedman, The Spectator, NCRI, Israel Truth Network, Israel Truth Network, Daily Mail, Daily Mail, Ynet News, US State Department