Israel on Thursday threatened to take The New York Times to court over a piece it published denouncing allegedly widespread sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar have ordered the “initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times”, according to a joint statement issued by their offices.

The offices said that the piece by Nicholas Kristof, a prominent opinion columnist, was “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press, which also received the backing of the newspaper”.

Kristof’s investigation is based on testimonies gathered in the Israeli-occupied West Bank from 14 men and women who said that they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces.

The report described “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”.

The New York Times responded that any legal claim over the “deeply reported opinion column” lacked merit.

“This threat, similar to one made last year, is part of a well-worn political playbook that aims to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokesperson for the newspaper, said in a statement.

Kristof’s piece said there was no evidence that Israeli leaders ordered rapes.

The Israeli foreign ministry claimed that Kristof had based his piece “on unverified sources tied to Hamas-linked networks”.

It also accused the paper of deliberately timing the publication to “undermine” an independent Israeli report on alleged Hamas sexual violence perpetrated during its October 7, 2023 attack, which was published on the same day.

Israeli forces have detained thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank since Hamas’s 2023 attack, which triggered Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

The United States has high protections for journalistic expression, with libel suits needing to prove that information was purposefully untrue and with harmful intent.

US President Donald Trump and his allies have nonetheless filed a number of lawsuits against media outlets, some of which have reached settlements rather than risk repercussions from his administration.