Former Israeli Armed Forces ombudsman, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalm, was arrested this Monday after admitting that she had published images of Israeli soldiers attacking a Palestinian prisoner. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalm had resigned last Friday and “disappeared” for several hours over the weekend, having reappeared this Sunday night.
At issue is the leak of a video from July 2024 that shows soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) abusing a Palestinian prisoner in Sde Teiman, an Israeli military base located in the Negev desert, close to the southern border with the Gaza Strip.
The military lawyer admitted, in her resignation letter on Friday, that she had authorized the release of the video in the press. She ended up being detained on suspicion of fraud, abuse of trust, abuse of power, obstruction of justice and also disclosure of official information by a public official, as described in the Israeli press.
The Israeli Prime Minister strongly criticized the release of the video, probably the “most serious” public relations attack the country has ever suffered. “The incident in Sde Teiman caused immense damage to the image of the State of Israel and the IDF,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released on Sunday. “This is perhaps the most serious public relations attack that the State of Israel has suffered since its founding,” he considered.
After resigning from her position, Tomer-Yerushalm spent several hours in an unknown location on Sunday and was considered missing, which sparked speculation about what had happened to her. It ended up reappearing on the same day.
A Tel Aviv court ordered the former military provider’s preventive detention until noon on Wednesday. And as Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, wrote on the Telegram platform, “it was agreed that, in light of last night’s events [domingo]the prison services would act with increased vigilance to ensure the safety of the detainee in the detention center where she was placed in custody.”
The Sde Teiman military base became known as a torture center. In the case of the video in question, 11 Israeli soldiers were detained at the time for questioning, on suspicion of abuse of a Palestinian prisoner, including anal rape. This is because the victim was hospitalized with “rectal damage”, “broken ribs” and “a punctured lung”, according to the process to which the jornal “The Guardian” had access.
From there, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalm launched a formal investigation. Despite the reported atrocities, the Israeli soldiers were praised and even considered “heroes” by the Israeli far right, who criticized those investigating the case for “betraying” the State itself. Five reservists were later accused of mistreating prisoners. It is thought that the lawyer leaked the video, in part, to mitigate these same criticisms.
The report of IDF soldiers’ abuse of Palestinian prisoners is not new, but it has gained more prominence and public attention since the start of the war in Gaza. Since October 7, 2023, at least 75 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli prisons, according to data from the United Nations (UN).