By Maayan Lubell
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The Israeli military’s chief legal officer resigned on Friday over a criminal inquiry into the leaking of a video that appeared to show soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee arrested during the Gaza war.
Advocate General Major-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi said that she was stepping down because she had approved the video’s leak in August 2024.
The abuse investigation led to criminal charges against five soldiers and stirred an uproar. The inquiry drew condemnation from right-wing politicians and prompted protesters to storm two military compounds after investigators sought troops for questioning in the case.
A week after the break-in at the bases, a security camera video showing the moments of the alleged abuse was leaked to Israel’s N12 News.
It showed soldiers taking a prisoner aside and crowding around while holding a dog and blocking visibility of their actions with their riot gear.
On Wednesday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said that there has been an ongoing criminal inquiry into the video leak and that Tomer-Yerushalmi was on forced leave.
Tomer-Yerushalmi defended her actions as an attempt to fend off propaganda against the military’s legal department entrusted with upholding the rule of law, and which she said had been subjected to smears throughout the war.
OFFICER SAYS VIOLENCE MUST BE PROBED
The footage came from Sde Teiman detention camp, where some of the Hamas militants who took part in the October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war are held, alongside Palestinians captured in subsequent months of Gaza combat.
Rights groups have reported grave abuses of Palestinians in Israeli detention during the war. Israel’s military is investigating dozens of cases but says abuse is not systematic.
Tomer-Yerushalmi called Sde Teiman detainees “terrorists of the worst kind,” in her resignation letter, but added that this did not take away from the obligation to investigate suspected abuse.
“To my regret, this basic understanding – that there are acts to which even the most vile of detainees must not be subjected – is no longer convincing to all,” she said.
Some politicians were swift to seize on Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation. Katz said that anyone who fabricates “blood libels against Israeli soldiers was unworthy of donning IDF uniform.”
Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir welcomed the resignation and called for an inquiry into more legal authorities.
He also posted a video of himself standing over Palestinian prisoners who were lying bound on the floor in an Israeli jail, saying that they were October 7 attackers who should receive the death penalty.
Around 1,700 Gaza detainees were freed this month as part of the Gaza ceasefire in exchange for 20 Israeli hostages, some of whom have reported torture and abuse during their captivity.
Three of them told Israeli press that they were sometimes beaten by their captors in revenge for remarks by Ben-Gvir, who has taken pride in worsening prison conditions for Palestinians. Ben-Gvir said in response that the allegations serve Hamas.
(Writing by Maayan Lubell; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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