The New York Times’ coverage of Israel’s wars has established a new precedent in journalistic integrity: publish stories as soon as possible, let them go viral, then discreetly apologize when the stories prove to be false.  Take, for example, the explosion at the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City on Oct. 16, 2023. Palestinian authorities blamed the explosion on Israeli air strikes, and the Hamas-run Palestinian Ministry of Health reported 500 people dead. The following day, the New York Times posted “At least 500 people were killed by an Israeli airstrike at a Gaza hospital, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.” Other outlets followed suit. “Hundreds feared dead or injured in Israeli air strike on hospital in Gaza, Palestinian officials say,” reported the BBC. After a thorough investigation, the hospital explosion was confirmed to be caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired in a barrage intended for the civilian populations of southern Israel. But by the time the facts came out, the narrative had already been set.  But there’s more. In July 2025, the New York Times published a photo of an emaciated toddler on its front page as proof of an Israeli-facilitated famine in Gaza. As it turned out, the boy suffered from a preexisting genetic disease unrelated to the war. The Times did issue a correction, but it was published on its public relations X account, seen by less than 100,000 viewers, and not on its website or main account, followed by over 55 million users. Over the past two years, I’ve also reported on how widely circulating claims of genocide and famine in Gaza have been fabricated by biased NGOs, politicians, and media outlets as part of a campaign to slander Israel.   News, therefore, is not being reported; it’s being shaped and fabricated through biased narratives, and the consequences are dangerous. The most recent jab at Israel is Nicholas Kristof’s opinion piece published in the New York Times on May 13. Kristof unveiled alleged horrific sexual abuses committed against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons. This followed a similar report from Faisal Ali at the Guardian a year earlier on alleged sexual abuses of Palestinian detainees.  Kristof’s piece was hard to read, filled with emotionally driven accounts from sexual abuse victims. It claimed that there is a pattern of widespread sexual violence against detained Palestinians by the Israeli military, intelligence agencies, Jewish settlers in the West Bank, prison guards, and specially trained rape dogs. But even in the most cringeworthy moments, I recalled reading uncomfortable pieces from the Times before, only to find out days or weeks later that the content had been recalled or debunked.  Kristof’s primary case was the 2024 alleged sexual abuse scandal of Gazan prisoners at the Sde Teiman prison. When this story first broke, it resulted in the arrest of the five Israeli perpetrators, who were army reserve soldiers. Their charges were dropped earlier this year because, among several reasons, the alleged victim was released back to Gaza in the October 2025 ceasefire and could not testify on the matter.  “The allegations raised are false and entirely unfounded,” the Israel Prison Service (IPS) responded to Kristof’s allegations. “The Israel Prison Service is a security organization that operates in accordance with the law and under the strict oversight of numerous official inspectors,” the IPS told the Times of Israel. “All prisoners are held in accordance with the law, while safeguarding their basic rights and under the supervision of a professional and skilled prison staff.”  Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who was quoted in Kristof’s piece, has since accused Kristof of misrepresenting him and portraying him as validating the allegations. The Israeli Foreign Ministry called the opinion article an “unfathomable inversion of reality” for turning the victims into the accused, noting Hamas’s sexual crimes against Israelis on October 7 and against the hostages in Gaza. Kristof, as it turns out, was not working alone, and the marionette strings attached to his shoulders began to emerge when considering that his primary source of information for this piece came from the NGO Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (EMHRM).  The organization’s chairman, Ramy Abdu, has been on a mission to slander Israel and dismiss the sexual crimes that Hamas committed against Israelis in 2023. It was strategic that Kristof’s piece was published the same day that the Israeli NGO Civil Commission published its 300-page report detailing 13 different types of sexual violence committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 and against hostages in captivity. Adbu responded to the Civil Commission report: “If you want an example of a shallow and worthless report — this is it. Not a single solid piece of information or credible testimony to build on.” Abdu, and EHMRM’s former chairman, Mazan Kahel, have been targeted by Israel as among Hamas’s “main operatives and institutions” in Europe. In response to Kristof’s opinion piece, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter posted a group photo of Abdu and Kahel standing next to former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed by Israel last year. Kristof’s reporting grows more questionable when considering his vagueness and the inconsistencies of what he frames as facts. First, the most gruesome accounts of sexual violence came from 12 unnamed sources, which he claims he found “by asking around among [Palestinian] lawyers, human rights groups, aid workers, and ordinary Palestinians themselves.” The need for anonymity is understandable, even respectable, considering the taboo, trauma, and shame that come with such violations. But this puts the reader in the uncomfortable position of trusting Palestinian organizations whose very existence is to wipe Israel off the map, and, as Oct. 7 has shown, will accomplish this at all costs — even lying to a journalist. Of the personal accounts whom Kristof did mention by name — journalist Sami al-Sai and activist Issa Amro — the media watchdog HonestReporting has noted that its stories of alleged sexual abuse have changed over time, “with dramatic new details added years later.”  I want to give Kristof the benefit of the doubt; he is on to something. Prisons are nasty places, guards and inmates are tough and ruthless, and sexual violence against both is a problem in every country. On top of that, the fact that an influx of inmates with direct ties to Hamas has flooded Israeli prisons in the wake of Oct. 7 presents a difficult situation. Undoubtedly, there is a tinge of revenge in the air. Nonetheless, if there are violations of human rights and acts of sexual violence, this is an issue the government in Jerusalem must confront. The problem is, we are being fed these allegations from a source that has repeatedly told us lies in the past. If the New York Times wants to be a voice for the Palestinian people or for victims of sexual violence, it has already done them a grave injustice through its untrustworthy reputation. Any facts that are unveiled, unfortunately, are drowned in a sea of objective opinions.  If corrections are later published on Kristof’s latest piece, chances are most readers won’t see it. 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