Israel Defense Ministry apologizes for strip search of pregnant New York Times photographer

Lynsey Addario, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times photographer, received an apology from the Israel's Defense Ministry on Monday after IDM officials conducted a strip-search on her last month at a security check point near Gaza.

Addario, who is pregnant, had asked Israel border security to refrain from putting her through an X-ray machine out of concern for her unborn child.

"Instead," the Associated Press reports, "she was forced through the machine three times as soldiers 'watched and laughed from above.' She said she was then taken into a room where she was ordered by a female worker to strip down to her underwear."

"We would like to apologize for this particular mishap in coordination and any trouble it may subsequently have caused to those involved," the ministry said in a statement.

In a letter to the defense ministry, the Times said the India-based Addario had never been treated with "such blatant cruelty."

Addario was one of four New York Times journalists captured and detained by pro-government forces in Libya earlier this year. Addario, Times Beirut bureau chief Anthony Shadid, reporter Stephen Farrell and fellow photographer Tyler Hicks were released four days later.

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