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⭕️ The Day After NYT’s Kristof Documented Systematic Israeli Rape of Detained Palestinians, CNN, AP, BBC, and NYT Gave Largely Uncritical Coverage to an Unverifiable Israeli Report
One day after New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof published a meticulously sourced investigation—drawing on 14 survivors, the UN, and several international rights groups—documenting systematic rape and sexual torture of Palestinian prisoners, the Times, along with other major media outlets, published largely uncritical coverage of a new report by the Civil Commission, an Israeli NGO claiming Hamas committed systematic sexual violence on October 7.
The underlying archive behind the Israeli report—which was covered by a wide range of outlets including the AP, CNN, BBC, and NYT—is entirely sealed. Only AP disclosed that its findings “could not be independently verified.” CNN acknowledged that it “has not been able to verify all of the contents of the archive”—though it claimed it has “seen many of the visual materials included in it.” The NYT noted the archive was closed “to protect the privacy of victims” without clarifying what that means for verification. The BBC likewise made no disclosure about whether it had reviewed or verified the sealed archive, writing only that “its evidence, which is being kept in a secure archive, may aid future prosecutions.”
Not one of the NYT, CNN, or BBC reports stated whether they had independently verified any of the report’s findings that they published in their own articles.
The report was led by Cochav Elkayam-Levy, who is both the founder and chair of the Civil Commission. She has faced serious challenges to her credibility over her previous investigations into claims of systemic sexual violence by Hamas on October 7. In 2024, Israel’s largest newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth published a damning exposé in which Israeli government officials said her “methodology was neither good nor accurate” and that “people have disassociated themselves from her because her research is inaccurate.”
Officials were particularly incensed that she spread the debunked claim—originating with Yossi Landau of ZAKA—that a pregnant woman was found with her womb cut open. “Slowly, professionals began distancing themselves from her because she was not reliable,” one Israeli official said. Elkayam-Levy even presented an old image of dead female Kurdish fighters as women sexually assaulted at the Nova music festival during a Harvard talk, in an online video shared by The Grayzone. When confronted with the error, she did not correct the record.
All four outlets also cited the 2023 UN report by Pramila Patten. The BBC described Patten’s visit to Israel, where she met with ZAKA’s Landau and other Israeli groups and officials to “receive information,” as an “investigation”—despite Patten herself explicitly rejecting that characterization and stating her mission was “neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature.” Patten also acknowledged her mission did not include gathering or examining “evidence.” At the same time, the outlets ignored the findings of the more authoritative UN Commission of Inquiry — the UN’s highest investigative body — as well as subsequent findings by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, all of which stated they were unable to verify any individual instance of rape on October 7.
🎥 VIDEO: The New York Times on the rape and sexual violence of Palestinians. Full video and source references in the reply.
