"Meanwhile, the soldiers seen sexually assaulting and abusing Palestinian detainees are still free," said one Palestinian observer.

Israel's former top military lawyer, who admitted to leaking a video apparently showing Israeli reserve soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman torture prison, was arrested late on Sunday following her disappearance most of the day.

After being reported missing Sunday morning, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, 51, was found "safe and in good health" that evening following a massive search in the coastal area of Herzliya, Israeli police said. She was subsequently arrested and on Monday faced charges of fraud and breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice, and disclosure of information as a public servant.

Tomer-Yerushalmi resigned Friday and admitted that she "authorized the release" of video footage showing IDF reservists at Sde Teiman from a unit called Force 100 brutally attacking a Palestinian prisoner, who was allegedly sodomized with a metal baton while other soldiers held up shields to conceal the assault.

"I bear full responsibility for any material that was released to the media," Tomer-Yerushalmi wrote in her resignation letter, in which she explained that her motivation for leaking the footage was "to counter false propaganda" against her office by far-right figures who denied the torture as a "blood libel" — a common Israeli tactic used to falsely smear criticism as "antisemitic."

Citing fears that Tomer-Yerushalmi may have tried to kill herself during her disappearance on Sunday — which were matched by concerns that she could be in danger of assassination — Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Israel Prison Service (IPS) Chief Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi said they ordered her placed under increased prison supervision.

According to The Jerusalem Post, this means that Tomer-Yerushalmi will be forced to remain in her cell under the supervision of additional IPS guards and security cameras.

Former military prosecutor Matan Solomesh was also arrested Sunday night in connection with the leaked video.

"Meanwhile," Palestinian human rights activist Ihab Hassan noted on X, "the soldiers seen sexually assaulting and abusing Palestinian detainees are still free."

On July 4, 2024, members of Force 100 attacked the Palestinian prisoner for approximately 15 minutes behind riot shields so cameras could not see, leaving him hospitalized with a severe anal injury, ruptured bowel, broken ribs, and lung damage, according to Dr. Yoel Donchin, an Israeli physician at the facility.

Footage of the assault was aired on Israeli television following Tomer-Yerushalmi's leak. While human rights groups called for an investigation into the attack, Israeli leaders including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich furiously demanded a probe not to seek justice for the victim, but rather to find and punish whoever leaked the video.

After a group of alleged participants in the attack were subsequently arrested, a mob of far-right Israelis including senior government officials stormed a pair of military bases in an attempt to free the suspects. While many Israelis condemned the alleged rape, others rallied around the accused reservists.

Ben-Gvir called suspects "our best heroes" and slammed their arrest. Smotrich lauded them as "heroic warriors."

Many right-wing Israeli politicians, pundits, and others publicly argued that IDF troops should have free reign to rape, torture, and murder Palestinians as revenge for the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Former Palestinian prisoners, IDF soldiers, and Israeli medical professionals have all said they witnessed torture and other abuse of detainees at Sde Teiman and other facilities. Victims ranged in age from children to octogenarians.

Israeli physicians who served at Sde Teiman have described widespread severe injuries caused by 24-hour shackling of hands and feet that sometimes required amputations. Palestinians taken by Israeli forces have recounted rape and sexually assault by male and female soldiers, electrocution, maulings by dogs, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, and other torture.

At least scores of detainees have died or been killed in Israeli custody, including one who expired after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton. Many bodies of former Palestinian prisoners returned by Israel have shown signs of torture, execution, and mutilation.

The IDF said in February that it had filed charges against five reservists suspected of abusing Sde Teiman prisoners.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation in Gaza — was among those who condemned Tomer-Yerushalmi for exposing IDF abuse.

"This is perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the state of Israel has experienced since its establishment," the prime minister said Sunday, a statement that came amid ongoing deadly attacks against Palestinians during a 759-day genocide that's left at least 249,000 Gazans dead, maimed, or missing and many more forcibly displaced, sick, and starving, according to local officials and international rights groups.

While some observers believe that Tomer-Yerushalmi is a heroic whistleblower for leaking the Sde Teiman video, others noted that she has approved and supports Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza, pointing to her resignation letter's claim that "the IDF is a moral and law-abiding army."

Comment: Associated Press adds:

She left a cryptic note for her family and abandoned her car near a beach. That led to fears she had taken her own life and prompted an intensive search that included the use of military drones.

She was found alive at the beach Sunday night, at which point more vitriol against her was unleashed.

"We can resume the lynch," right-wing TV personality Yinon Magal, an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted on X with a winking-face emoji.

After it was revealed that one of Tomer-Yerushalmi's phones had disappeared, right-wing politicians and commentators began to accuse her of staging a suicide attempt as a way to destroy potential evidence.

The extraordinary episode shows two years of devastating war have done little to heal a country that was deeply divided even before Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. It also makes Tomer-Yerushalmi the latest in a long line of top security officials who have either left office or been forced out, most of them to be replaced by people considered loyal to Netanyahu and his hardline government.

Anger over leak distracts from severe abuse at heart of case

At a court hearing Monday, the judge said Tomer-Yerushalmi's detention would be extended until Wednesday on suspicion of committing fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of justice. While the investigation into her actions continues, she is being held at a women's prison in central Israel.

Israeli media reported that former chief military prosecutor Col. Matan Solomesh was also arrested in connection with the leak investigation. The prime minister's office has refused to comment on Solomesh's arrest.

The fury over the leaked video reveals the depth of polarization in Israel — and at least for the moment, keeps the media and the public focused on the leak and not the allegations of abuse.

[...]

In her resignation letter, Tomer-Yerushalmi wrote that she had exposed evidence of the abuse to counter the idea that the military was unfairly targeting its own soldiers. That idea was creating a danger to the military's law enforcement, she said, citing the break-in.

She wrote that the military had a "duty to investigate when there is reasonable suspicion of violence against a detainee.

"Unfortunately, this basic understanding — that there are actions which must never be taken even against the vilest of detainees — no longer convinces everyone," she wrote.

That rarest of creature: an Israeli who appears to have a conscience.

IDF's top lawyer quits; says she approved leak of detainee abuse video