"Israel’s" top military lawyer has been arrested after admitting to leaking footage exposing Israeli occupation forces' rape of a Palestinian detainee,  and allegedly deceiving the entity's top court about her involvement in its release.

Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the military advocate general, stated in her resignation letter last week that she had authorised the release of the video to push back against growing public criticism of military prosecutors and investigators involved in the case.

Her arrest marks a major development in a case that has further exposed the complicity of "Israel’s" judicial system and intensified global scrutiny of a military waging what a UN commission has unequivocally described as a genocidal war on Gaza.

The case ignited fury among right-wing politicians and commentators, who hailed the accused soldiers as “heroes” and denounced military investigators as "traitors", while many demanded that the charges against the troops be dropped altogether.

Israeli media reported that Tomer-Yerushalmi was detained on suspicion of fraud, breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice, and unauthorised disclosure of official information. Her arrest, legal analysts say, underscores growing tensions within "Israel’s" institutions over the balance between military loyalty and judicial independence, and raises difficult questions about the entity's ability to "defend" itself in international courts.

Sde Teiman torture crime: Graphic evidence of Israeli war crimes

The controversy stems from a July 2024 raid at the notorious Sde Teiman concentration camp, a site long implicated in torture and sexual abuse. Prosecutors detained 11 members of the Israeli occupation forces accused of violently and sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza.

According to the indictment, the victim was an*lly raped, suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung, and severe rectal injuries before being hospitalised.

Tomer-Yerushalmi subsequently opened an investigation into the case. But her decision provoked intense backlash from government figures and media allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who accused her of tarnishing "Israel’s" image.

“The incident in Sde Teiman caused immense damage to the image of the state of Israel and the IDF,” Netanyahu said on Sunday. “This is perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the state of Israel has experienced since its establishment.”

After far-right protesters,  including a government minister and two Knesset members, stormed the Sde Teiman base in protest, Tomer-Yerushalmi released the video in August 2024. She later said the leak was “an attempt to debunk false propaganda against army law enforcement bodies.”

Days later, five soldiers were charged with aggravated abuse and serious bodily harm, though none were named, detained, or restricted from duty, according to Israeli media. The backlash soon turned personal. As public criticism intensified, Tomer-Yerushalmi reportedly refused to pursue additional investigations into potential war crimes in Gaza due to political pressure and threats, Haaretz reported.

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Culture of impunity in the IOF

Despite widespread documentation of torture and deaths in custody, only one Israeli soldier has been convicted of assaulting Palestinian detainees during the genocide. None have faced prosecution for the killing of civilians in Gaza, including well-documented strikes that killed paramedics and a World Central Kitchen aid team.

The pattern, experts say, reflects a systemic failure of accountability.

The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced on Sunday that, over 24 hours, its crews received the bodies of seven martyrs. This figure includes three newly killed individuals, three others recovered from beneath the rubble, and one person who succumbed to wounds he sustained earlier, in addition to six injuries.

According to the report, the total death toll from the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, has now risen to 68,865 fatalities, in addition to 170,670 injuries. Meanwhile, the number of casualties since the ceasefire was announced on October 11 has reached 236 fatalities and 600 injuries, in addition to the recovery of 502 bodies from under the rubble.

As reports emerged that Tomer-Yerushalmi had leaked the footage, calls for her resignation escalated into online harassment and physical threats. Over the weekend, fears for her safety spiked after her partner reported her missing and police found her car abandoned at a Tel Aviv beach with a note inside.

She was later found alive, but within minutes, the abuse resumed. Far-right pundit Yinon Magal wrote on X: “We can proceed with the lynching,” adding a winking emoji. That evening, protesters gathered outside her home, chanting: “We will give you no peace.”

Even Security Minister Israel Katz joined the attacks, accusing her of “spreading blood libels.”

Implications for "Israel’s" legal  credibility abroad

"Israel" has long argued that its independent judiciary shields it from prosecution in international courts such as the International Criminal Court (ICC). The rationale is that if "Israel" credibly investigates its own military misconduct, the ICC lacks jurisdiction to intervene.

But Tomer-Yerushalmi herself had warned colleagues six weeks ago that political interference was eroding that legal defense. "Don’t they understand we had no choice? That the only way to address the wave of international legal proceedings is by proving we can investigate ourselves?" she was quoted as saying by journalist Ronen Bergman in Yedioth Ahronoth.

In recent decades, many Israelis viewed the military advocate general’s office as a shield against foreign prosecution, Prof. Yagil Levy, head of the Institute for the Study of Civil-Military Relations at "Israel’s" Open University, told The Guardian.

"In other words, the law is not upheld as a value in itself, but as a defence against international tribunals," Levy said.

Levy noted that during the war on Gaza, Tomer-Yerushalmi gave the army a free hand, despite "unprecedented collateral damage from airstrikes."

"This reflects a far weaker commitment to international law," he added, “with some on the right claiming that Israel is exempt from respecting it, and even providing religious justifications for this view.”

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