Police in Israel have arrested and detained the army's top legal official after she admitted to releasing a video of soldiers allegedly assaulting a Palestinian prisoner and then lying about her actions to Israel's Supreme Court.
The military attorney general, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, said in her resignation letter last week that she approved the release of the recording to mitigate attacks on military investigators and prosecutors working on the case, the Guardian reported.
Right-wing politicians and commentators have proclaimed the arrested soldiers “heroes,” attacked military investigators as traitors, and called for the charges against the soldiers to be dropped.
Tomer-Yerushalmi has now been arrested on suspicion of fraud and breach of trust, abuse of official position, obstruction of justice and disclosure of official information, Israeli media reported.
In July 2024, prosecutors raided the Sde Tejman military detention center, which had become notorious for torture, and took 11 soldiers in for questioning.
They were suspected of a violent attack on a Palestinian man from Gaza, including rape. According to the indictment, the victim was hospitalized with injuries that included broken ribs, a punctured lung and a damaged rectum, after which Tomer-Yerushalmi launched an investigation.
The government, as well as far-right politicians and commentators, accused her of damaging Israel's reputation in the world by launching the case and releasing the footage.
"The incident in Sde Teman has caused enormous damage to the reputation of the State of Israel and the IDF," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Sunday. "This is perhaps the most severe blow to the public image of the State of Israel since its founding."
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