Mounted by dogs, penetrated by carrots, and rectums torn by batons.
These are just some of the harrowing testimonies of the rape of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, detailed by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in a landmark piece published on Monday.
None of it is new.
Middle East Eye revealed similar testimonies last month, from a report titled “Sexual violence and forcible transfer in the West Bank: How the exploitation of gender dynamics drives displacement,” by the West Bank Protection Consortium.
The group documented at least 16 cases involving sexual crimes perpetrated by Israeli settlers and soldiers.
And in March, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, said in her report to the UN Human Rights Council that "the Israeli prison system has degenerated into a laboratory of calculated cruelty" with acts that include rape of Palestinians with bottles, metal rods and knives.
But for a corporate media giant like the NYT, which has often overlooked and doubted Palestinian narratives, such storytelling is novel, and the Israeli government immediately slammed the decision to run it.