Outrage as Israeli journalist mocks British victim of alleged Cyprus gang rape

A veteran Israeli journalist has come under fire after mocking the British victim of an alleged gang rape by twelve Israelis in Cyprus.

The twelve suspects were arrested last week after a 19-year-old British tourist alleged that she was raped at a hotel in the popular resort of Ayia Napa where she and the Israelis were staying.

"Oh, she was used to two or three, and all of a sudden twelve, that's the breaking point?" Roni Daniel, an army correspondent and commentator, said during a radio discussion.

The senior journalist was responding to local police reports which allege that the victim had consensual sexual intercourse with three of the suspects.

More than 700 complaints were made about Daniel's comments, with women's rights organisations expressing outrage over his remarks.

"Roni Daniel mocks a victim of gang rape, and with an arrogant and violent slip of the tongue says that a woman who willingly entered a sexual relationship with a certain person is permitted to all the rest," said the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, according to The Times of Israel.

"That view was terrible and wrong in the 1950s, and in 2019 it simply cannot pass silently."

Daniel later issued an apology on social media.

All twelve suspects face charges of rape and conspiracy to commit rape.