Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the former chief prosecutor of the Israeli military, was arrested overnight, according to Defense Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Two days earlier, she had left her post after admitting that she leaked a video from the infamous prison at the Israeli military base Sde Teiman last year.
According to accusations from mainly the right wing of Israeli politics, Tomer-Yerushalmi has “betrayed the state,” Israeli media reports. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the leak “the most serious PR attack on Israel to date.”
The video was published in Israeli media in August 2024, shortly after ten soldiers were arrested for suspected assaults at Sde Teiman. The prisoner in the video suffered serious injuries in the attack, including broken ribs and a ruptured rectum.
Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, both UN agencies and Israeli human rights organizations, including B'Tselem , have repeatedly raised the alarm about abuse and torture-like treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. Prisoners have described gross and arbitrary violence, sexual abuse, humiliation, and intentional starvation and sleep deprivation.
Israel has consistently rejected the allegations of systematic abuses.
