The Israeli military’s top lawyer, Major-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, has resigned after admitting to leaking footage showing the gang rape of a prisoner at the Sde Temain prison facility in August last year.
The video of the rape had originally been leaked to the press in early August in the midst of a right-wing backlash following the arrest of a number of soldiers for the rape of a Palestinian prisoner.
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In her resignation statement on Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi blamed pressure from the right-wing on her rape investigation for her decision to leak the footage, claiming that she was countering “false propaganda directed against the military law enforcement authorities”.
In the leaked footage, soldiers can be seen grabbing and leading away a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner before surrounding him with riot shields to obscure the rape.
“For 15 minutes, the accused kicked the detainee, stomped on him, stood on his body, hit him and pushed him all over his body, including with clubs, dragged his body along the ground, and used a taser gun on him, including on his head,” the original indictment stated.
According to medical information obtained by the Israeli daily Haaretz, the victim suffered a ruptured bowel, severe anal and lung injuries, and broken ribs as a result of the assault. He later required surgery.
What happened to the soldiers?
At least nine soldiers were detained in connection with the man’s rape. All but five were released relatively quickly.
In February, the remaining soldiers were indicted for “severely abusing” the detainee, but not raping him. The trial is ongoing.
A United Nations commission, reviewing the change of indictment and other instances of Israel’s use of sexual and gender-based violence, determined that the decision to downgrade the indictments, despite the evidence, “will inevitably result in a more lenient punishment” if there is a conviction.
Why weren’t Israeli politicians calling for accountability?
Because they determined that doing so was somehow unpatriotic.
A number of Israel’s far-right politicians, including Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, were among those who stormed the Sde Teiman prison in protest at the arrest of the soldiers for rape.
Israel’s hard-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir appeared to address Tomer-Yerushalmi directly in July 2024, writing in Hebrew, “The Military Advocate General, take your hands off the reservists!” he said, referring to the soldiers accused of rape.
Ben-Gvir’s fellow traveller on the far-right, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, was equally active on social media at the time, writing that the alleged rapists should be treated like “heroes, not villains”.
Returning to social media during the furore following the rape, Smotrich chose to ignore the credible accusations of rape and instead called for “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world, and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them”.
How have the critics reacted to Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation?
Many of the loudest voices in defending the alleged rapists were equally vocal in welcoming the resignation of the woman responsible for sharing evidence of that rape.
Writing on social media hours after Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation, Smotrich accused her and much of Israel’s judicial system of rank corruption, as well as launching what he called an “anti-Semitic blood libel” against their military.
Ben-Gvir was no less critical of Israel’s judicial system in the leaking of the footage, writing: “All those involved in the affair must be held accountable.”
Both ministers are active supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing attempts to weaken the judiciary and reduce its political oversight.
Have other crimes been committed at Sde Teiman against Palestinians?
At least 135 of the mutilated bodies returned to Palestinian officials in Gaza by Israel last week as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal, had been held at Sde Teiman, documents that accompanied each corpse showed.
Several of the bodies had been left with blindfolds on, and some had their hands still tied behind their back. One had a rope around its neck.
The same UN report that examined the reduced indictment against the soldiers also noted that detainees at Sde Teiman – including children – were regularly shackled, forced into stress positions, denied toilets and showers and beaten.
Some were subjected to sexual violence, including the insertion of objects, electric shocks and rape.