4.11.2025
Israeli police arrested the top military lawyer Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, after she admitted to leaking a video appearing to show soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee.
Former advocate general Tomer-Yerushalmi disappeared for several hours on Sunday after announcing her resignation, triggering media speculation of a possible suicide attempt, but she was later detained.
According to a copy of her resignation letter published by Israeli media on Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi has acknowledged that her office had released the video to the media last year during an international uproar over prisoner mistreatment.
Five reservists have been formally charged since the video was leaked in 2024. Among the charges they faced was using a “sharp object” to stab detainee near the rectum.
In a social media post, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said: “It was agreed that in light of last night’s events, the prison service would act with extra vigilance to ensure the detainee’s safety in the detention centre.”
In the statement, he emphasised the “importance of… conducting the investigation professionally in order to uncover the full truth regarding the case that led to a blood libel against IDF soldiers”.
According to Israeli media, a Tel Aviv court ordered that Tomer-Yerushalmi be remanded in custody until noon on Wednesday.
Public broadcaster Kan reported she was accused of “fraud and breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice and disclosure of information by a public servant”.
She is implicated along with another member of the military prosecution.
The leaked video piled pressure on Israel’s political and military leaders during the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023.
“The exposure of the brutal abuse… at the Sde Teiman detention site dealt a heavy blow not only to Israel’s image but also to its legitimacy and that of the Israel Defense Forces,” wrote the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in an editorial on Sunday.
In October 2024, a UN commission found that thousands of detainees were subjected to “widespread and systematic abuse” in Israeli military camps and detention facilities that amounted to a “war crime and crime against humanity of torture”.
Israel called the accusations “outrageous”, adding it was “fully committed to international legal standards regarding the treatment of detainees”. AFP