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ISRAEL’S TOP MILITARY LAWYER ARRESTED AFTER SHE ADMITTED LEAKING
VIDEO OF SOLDIERS’ ABUSE  
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Emma Graham-Harrison
November 3, 2025
The Guardian
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_ Rightwing politicians and pundits have called the soldiers accused
of attack on Palestinian detainee ‘heroes’ and military
investigators traitors _

The detention of the military advocate general, Yifat
Tomer-Yerushalmi, raises questions about the rule of law in Israel.,
Oren Ben Hakoon/AP

 

Police in Israel have arrested and detained the military’s top legal
officer after she admitted leaking footage
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of soldiers allegedly attacking a Palestinian detainee and then in
effect lying about her actions to Israel’s high court.

The military advocate general, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, said
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in a resignation letter last week that she had authorised publication
of the video to defuse attacks on military investigators and
prosecutors working on the case.

 
Rightwing politicians and pundits championed soldiers detained over
the case as “heroes”, attacked military investigators as traitors,
and called for the case against the soldiers to be dropped.

Tomer-Yerushalmi has now been arrested on suspicion of fraud and
breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice, and
disclosure of official information by a public servant, Israeli media
reported.

Her arrest and detention raises serious questions about the rule of
law in Israel, accountability for abuse and killing of Palestinians
during what a UN commission has called a genocidal war
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and the country’s ability to defend itself in international courts.

In July 2024 prosecutors raided the Sde Teiman military detention
centre, which has become notorious for torture
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and detained 11 soldiers for interrogation.

They were suspects in a violent assault
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on a Palestinian from Gaza, including anal rape. The victim was
hospitalised with injuries including broken ribs, a punctured lung and
rectal damage, according to the indictment, and Tomer-Yerushalmi
launched an investigation.

The government and far-right politicians and pundits have accused her
of damaging Israel’s global standing by pursing the case and
releasing the video, in effect casting her efforts to prosecute
extreme violence as a project to undermine the state.

“The incident in Sde Teiman caused immense damage to the image of
the state of Israel and the IDF [Israel Defense Forces],” the
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement on
Sunday. “This is perhaps the most severe public relations attack
that the state of Israel has experienced since its establishment.”

After the first detentions of soldiers in the case in summer 2024, a
far-right mob gathered outside Sde Teiman calling for the
investigation to be dropped. Some of the protesters – including a
minister and two members of the Knesset – broke into the base
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Tomer-Yerushalmi leaked the video in August 2024 after the protests,
saying in her resignation letter that it was “an attempt to debunk
false propaganda against army law enforcement bodies”.

Days later, five soldiers were charged with aggravated abuse and
causing serious bodily harm. They have not been named and are
currently not in custody or under any legal restrictions
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Israeli media reported.

Tomer-Yerushalemi subsequently refused to open or advance
investigations into other cases of possible war crimes by the Israeli
military, because of the pressure of public attacks over the case,
Haaretz reported
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There has been only one conviction
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an Israeli soldier for assaulting Palestinians in detention during the
war, although widespread torture and abuse
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have been documented in Israel’s jail system, and dozens of
Palestinians have died in captivity.

No soldiers have been charged for killing civilians in Gaza, even
after high-profile attacks that prompted international outrage,
including the killing of paramedics
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and strikes on a team
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from the World Central Kitchen charity. Tens of thousands of
Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been killed in attacks and
airstrikes over two years.

Attacks on Tomer-Yerushalemi over the Sde Teiman affair intensified in
recent days amid reports that she was responsible for leaking the
video. There were official demands for her to step down and personal
threats online, even after she announced her resignation.

The campaign briefly halted on Sunday afternoon amid fears for her
life, after her partner reported her missing to the police and her car
was found empty at a beach in the Tel Aviv area with a note inside,
Israeli media reported.

Then she was found, and within minutes the attacks resumed. The
far-right commentator Yinon Magal posted on X, “we can proceed with
the lynching”, adding a winking emoji.

Soon after, protesters had gathered outside her house, Israeli media
reported, shouting slogans including “we will give you no peace”.
The defence minister, Israel Katz, later accused her of “spreading
blood libels”.

Traditionally Israel’s government and military have considered the
existence of an independent judiciary a crucial barrier to
international legal tribunals investigating Israel for alleged abuses
against Palestinians.

Where there is a robust national legal system willing and able to
investigate and prosecute crimes, international courts are less likely
to have jurisdiction to intervene.

“Don’t they understand we had no choice? That the only way to
address the wave of international legal proceedings is by proving we
can investigate ourselves?” the investigative reporter Ronen Bergman
quoted the advocate general telling colleagues six weeks ago, in a
report for Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

In recent decades many Israelis have seen the role of the military
advocate general “as protecting soldiers from prosecution abroad”,
said Prof Yagil Levy, head of the Institute for the Study of
Civil-Military Relations at Israel’s Open University.

“In other words, the law is not upheld as a value in itself, but as
a defence against international tribunals.”

Now even such legal pragmatism is under attack by the political right,
whose influence can be seen in the lack of legal accountability for
soldiers’ conduct in Gaza over the past two years, Levy added.

“During the war, the advocate general gave the army a free hand in
Gaza, for example, regarding the unprecedented collateral damage from
airstrikes,” he said.

“This reflects a far weaker commitment to international law, with
some on the right claiming that Israel is exempt from respecting it,
and even providing religious justifications for this view.”

* Israel
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* Military
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* justice system
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* Palestinian prisoners
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* Torture
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* prisoner abuse
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