Israel’s top military lawyer quits over leaked video of Palestinian detainee abuse

Israeli soldiers gather at the gate to the Sde Teiman military base, where inside, soldiers are being questioned for detainee abuse, Monday, July 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli military said its top lawyer resigned on Friday during an investigation into a leaked video appearing to show soldiers severely abusing a Palestinian detainee.

The case triggered international outrage and protests within Israel, and focused on footage taken at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel last year.

Sde Teiman has been used to hold Gazans since the start of the war in the Palestinian territory, sparked by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

“The Military Advocate General, MG Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, submitted a request this morning to conclude her position,” a military statement said, without specifying the reasons for her resignation.

“The Chief of the General Staff is confident that a thorough and truthful inquiry will be conducted regarding the matters discussed,” the statement added.

Earlier this week, it was announced that a criminal investigation had been launched into the leaking of footage from Sde Teiman appearing to show the abuse by soldiers.

The Israeli military said in February that it had filed charges against five reservist soldiers connected with the mistreatment.

The statement said they were charged with “acting against the detainee with severe violence, including stabbing the detainee’s bottom with a sharp object, which had penetrated near the detainee’s rectum.”

It added “the acts of violence have caused severe physical injury to the detainee, including cracked ribs, a punctured lung and an inner rectal tear.”

The case was brought before the military justice system after the release of the video.

According to a copy of the military prosecutor’s resignation letter published by Israeli media on Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi acknowledged that her office had released information to the media after politically motivated protests tried to thwart the investigation into the abuse.

“The IDF is a moral and law-abiding army, and therefore, even during a painful and prolonged war, it must investigate illegal acts,” the resignation letter said.

Defense Minister Israel Katz welcomed the resignation as “a good thing” on Friday.

“Those who slander IDF soldiers have no place in the army,” he said, according to a statement from his office.

In October 2024, a UN commission found 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.”