TEL AVIV, Israel — The fallout from a leaked video allegedly showing Israeli soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee has deepened after the arrest of Maj Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the former top legal officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Gen Tomer-Yerushalmi, who resigned last week as Military Advocate General, was detained on Sunday alongside former chief military prosecutor Col Matan Solomosh.
Police said the pair are being investigated for “leaking and other serious criminal offences.”
Her arrest came just hours after she was reported missing, prompting an extensive police search along a beach north of Tel Aviv.
Authorities later said she was found “safe and in good health” in the coastal area of Herzliya before being taken into custody.
The controversy centres on a video broadcast in August 2024 by an Israeli news channel, which allegedly shows reserve soldiers at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel surrounding a Palestinian detainee with riot shields and beating him.
The footage purportedly shows the man being stabbed in the rectum with a sharp object, causing severe injuries.
Five reservists have since been charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm. They deny the allegations and appeared in court last week, wearing black balaclavas to conceal their identities.
Their lawyers, from the right-wing legal aid group Honenu, have claimed the case is politically motivated. “Our clients were subjected to a faulty, biased and completely cooked-up legal process,” said lawyer Adi Keidar.
The leak of the video has ignited a fierce political battle within Israel, exposing deep divisions between the country’s right and left.
On the political right, the release has been condemned as an act of betrayal against the military.
Defence Minister Israel Katz accused Tomer-Yerushalmi of spreading “blood libels” against IDF troops and said she was unfit to wear the uniform.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the video’s release as “perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced since its establishment.”
Gen Tomer-Yerushalmi, however, defended her decision to release the material. In her resignation letter, she said she approved the media release “to counter false propaganda against the army’s law enforcement authorities.”
She added that it was the military’s duty “to investigate whenever there is reasonable suspicion of acts of violence against a detainee.”
The former advocate general had been placed on leave pending an inquiry before announcing her resignation on Friday.
Her arrest marks a dramatic escalation in a saga that has become a flashpoint in Israel’s ongoing reckoning over the treatment of Palestinian detainees.
The Sde Teiman incident has drawn international scrutiny. A United Nations commission of inquiry last year alleged that thousands of Palestinian detainees had suffered systematic abuse, including sexual and gender-based violence, amounting to war crimes.
Israel rejected those claims, insisting it remains “fully committed to international legal standards” and investigates all credible allegations.
As the investigation into the leak continues, the case of Gen Tomer-Yerushalmi has become emblematic of the deep ideological rifts fracturing Israeli society — between those demanding accountability for military conduct and those who see such scrutiny as an attack on the state itself.
