“The New York Times has said libel action threatened against it by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over an article alleging sexual assaults against Palestinian detainees by Israeli security services is "without merit".”

“Netanyahu and his foreign minister issued a statement saying they had ordered the "initiation of a defamation lawsuit".”

“the publication on Monday of the article which claimed there was "a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children" carried out by soldiers, settlers, interrogators and prison guards.”

“The statement issued by Netanyahu and Gideon Saar on Thursday accused the New York Times of "one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press".”

“Israel's foreign ministry alleged that the writer, Nicholas Kristof, had based his piece "on unverified sources tied to Hamas-linked networks".”

“On Thursday, scores of Jewish protesters demonstrated outside the office of the New York Times in Manhattan, calling for Kristof to be fired.”

“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'."”