The former top legal officer in Israel’s military has been arrested after admitting that she authorized the leak of a video that appears to show Israeli soldiers attacking a Palestinian detainee in a detention facility last year.
Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi served as Military Advocate General of the Israel Defense Forces until Friday, Oct. 31, when she admitted in a resignation letter to having approved the leak of the video clip to Israeli media.
She called her actions, “an attempt to counter the false propaganda directed against the military law enforcement authorities,” following a backlash by members of Israel’s far-right against her department’s investigation into alleged abuse of a Palestinian prisoner.
Israeli media have reported that Tomer-Yerushalmi is set to be questioned by investigators, and that she could face charges including obstruction to justice. Until recently, the department she led was conducting an investigation into the same video leak.
Oren Ben Hakoon/AP 
The leaked video in question, which was released to media outlets in August 2024, triggered shockwaves of condemnation in Israel and abroad. The security camera clip was recorded in the Sde Teiman military detention center, and the IDF has not disputed its authenticity. It shows Israeli soldiers carrying a blindfolded detainee behind a wall of personal shields seemingly formed by other soldiers to obscure the view of the security cameras.
Following the release of the video, five Israeli soldiers were arrested and charged with aggravated battery for severe injury to a detainee in their custody.
According to a document detailing the charges, the soldiers kicked, dragged, stepped on and tasered the detainee. The Palestinian man was admitted to a hospital with fractured ribs, a punctured lung and a rectal tear after the incident.
The investigation into the alleged attack is ongoing.
The arrests prompted angry demonstrations in support of the accused soldiers, notably with a crowd gathering and breaking into the Sde Teiman facility. Israeli media said three members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, were present at that protest. A second facility, where the soldiers were being questioned, was also stormed by protesters.
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In her resignation letter, Tomer-Yerushalmi said there had been a “false campaign of delegitimization” targeting her department, the role of which is to uphold the law within the IDF.
“This destructive campaign reached its peak following the decision to investigate the Sde Teiman affair,” Tomer-Yerushalmi said.
She also said there had been “severe allegations suggesting that we favor terrorists over our own troops” during the investigation into the attack at the detention center.
The fury among Israelis at Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack has fueled opposition in many quarters to investigations into the actions of the country’s security forces and Tomer-Yerushalmi was publicly criticized by senior members of the Israeli government during the inquiry she then led.
Shortly after her resignation on Friday, Defense Minister Israel Katz released a statement welcoming her departure, adding: “Anyone who spreads blood libels against IDF troops is unfit to wear the army’s uniform.”
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the scandal was “perhaps the most severe propaganda attack that the State of Israel has experienced since its establishment.”
When approached about the arrest of the former top military lawyer, the Israeli national police declined to comment, noting that the investigation was still ongoing.
Palestinians released from Israeli prisons since the U.S.-brokered peace plan came into effect in Gaza have claimed significant abuse at the hands of their jailers. The United Nations said in September that at least 75 Palestinians had died in Israeli detention since the war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Some far-right members of the Israeli government have vowed to make the country’s detention centers less hospitable, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who is in charge of prisons in the country, who vowed they would not be “summer camps” under his watch.
CBS News’ Michal Ben-Gal and Ofir Rosenblum contributed to this report.
