Prosecutor arrested after leaked video

Israel

Prosecutor arrested after leaked abuse video

TT

Updated 10.22 | Published 09.59

 

Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, until recently the chief prosecutor of the Israeli army, in a picture taken in Jerusalem in October 2024. Photo: Oren Ben Hakoon/AP/TT

A former chief prosecutor of the Israeli army has been arrested after she leaked a surveillance video from the Sde Teiman military base.

The video reportedly shows several Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner.

Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, former chief prosecutor of the Israeli army, was arrested on Monday night, according to Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Two days earlier, she had left her post after admitting that she had leaked a video from the notorious prison at the Israeli military base of Sde Teiman last year.

According to accusations from mainly the right wing of Israeli politics, Tomer-Yerushalmi has “betrayed the state,” Israeli media write. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the leak the “most serious PR attack on Israel to date.”

Suffered serious injuries

The video was published in Israeli media in August 2024, shortly after ten soldiers were arrested for suspected abuse at Sde Teiman. The prisoner in the video suffered serious injuries in the attack, including broken ribs and a ruptured rectum.

Both UN agencies and Israeli legal organizations, including B’Tselem, have repeatedly raised the alarm about abuse and torture-like treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody since the outbreak of the war in Gaza. Detainees have described gross and arbitrary violence, sexual abuse, humiliation, and intentional starvation and sleep deprivation.

Israel has consistently denied allegations of systematic abuse.