Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi is a Major general in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) who served as the chief military advocate from September 1, 2021. Previously, she served as the gender affairs advisor to the chief of staff of the IDF.
On October 31, she resigned after admitting to leaking footage showing the gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman prison facility on July 5, 2024. The shocking video was broadcast on Channel 12 on August 6, 2024.
Tomer-Yerushalmi is a whistleblower now under arrest, and supporters fear for her safety. Supporters of the right-wing extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are calling her a traitor, while his critics are calling her a hero.
She left a note to her family, and then went missing. Authorities were searching on land and in the sea with flares and helicopters after her family had reported her missing to the police. However, she was found safe on a beach in Tel Aviv on October 2, and subsequently was arrested.
The root cause of the issue is Israeli apartheid, which is a system of institutionalized segregation and discrimination in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and to a lesser extent in Israel proper. This system is characterized by near-total physical separation between the Palestinian and the Israeli settler population of the West Bank, as well as the judicial separation that governs both communities, which discriminates against the Palestinians in a wide range of ways.
According to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem, “the Israeli regime enacts in all the territory it controls (Israeli sovereign territory, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip) an apartheid regime. One organizing principle lies at the base of a wide array of Israeli policies: advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians.”
Jewish prisoners in Israel have rights, but Palestinians do not. The Israeli Jewish culture views non-Jews as inferior people, bordering on non-human. If a Jewish prisoner was gang raped, authorities would find and punish those involved to the full extent of the law. But, when a Palestinian prisoner is gang raped by Jewish soldiers, the rapists are called heroes.
Tomer-Yerushalmi leaked the video because she cared about the legal process and could see there was a severe breakdown of the legal system in Israel. Extremists were calling the IDF soldiers heroes, and she knew that military law is the backbone of any country. Once you allow military law to be dismissed, the rule of the jungle sets in, and no chain of command can survive.
The Jewish State of Israel likes to boast it is based on democracy. However, once the legal system is dismissed as unpatriotic, the country is no longer democratic.
The UN issued a report after reviewing the case, and noted that Palestinian prisoners at Sde Teiman were often shackled, forced into stress positions, denied toilets and showers and beaten, including children. Some prisoners faced sexual violence, such as sodomy, electric shocks and rape.
The leaked video showed IDF soldiers grabbing and taking a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner to the side, then surrounding him with riot shields to prevent the rape being directly seen.
“For 15 minutes, the accused kicked the detainee, stomped on him, stood on his body, hit him and pushed him all over his body, including with clubs, dragged his body along the ground, and used a taser gun on him, including on his head,” the original indictment stated.
Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, exposed the medical report which listed his injuries as a ruptured bowel, severe anal and lung injuries, and broken ribs as a result of the assault. He later required surgery.
Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition politicians, along with others, were outraged that the IDF soldiers were under investigation of abuses, and after the soldiers were detained on July 29, 2024, an attempt was made to prevent their arrests involving breaking into a detention facility and an army base.
About nine IDF soldiers were detained for their part in the rape, with four being released quickly, and five remained in detention. In February, the five were indicted for severely abusing the Palestinian prisoner, but the charge of rape was not included, and the trial is ongoing.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, National Security Minister, threatened Tomer-Yerushalmi in July 2024 following the rape accusations made against the soldiers.
Ben-Gvir criticized Israel’s judicial system after the video leak, and urged “All those involved in the affair must be held accountable.”
Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister, insisted on social media that the alleged rapists should be treated like “heroes, not villains”.
It was Smotrich who called for a criminal investigation to find the leakers of the viral video which was intended to harm the soldiers and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world, and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them.
After Tomer-Yerushamlmi resigned, Smotrich accused her of corruption and defamation of the Israeli military, amounting to an accusation of treason.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are staunch supporters of Netanyahu’s ongoing attempts to weaken the judiciary and reduce its political oversight.
Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats, recalled Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had been subjected to the same incitement as Tomer-Yerushalmi prior to being assassinated in 1995 by a far-right Jewish extremist, Yigal Amir.
“Thirty years after Rabin’s assassination, this same method of labeling ‘traitors’ and encouraging political violence continues. The incitement will only stop after those leading it are removed from power,” Golan posted on X.
Gadi Eisenkot, former Blue and White Member of the Knesset, said “Even if mistakes and failures occurred, inciting violence against public servants is grave and destructive,” and added, “The incitement and inflammatory rhetoric are tearing Israel apart from within.”
There is a debate on who will be found to replace Tomer-Yerushalmi, with some urging the selection of a civilian legal expert. However, Israeli Military Justice Law requires the military advocate general must be “a military attorney with at least seven years of legal experience.”
Israeli citizens see a need to have abuses exposed for the long-term good of the country. They fear she will suffer for her bravery to show the public what is happening when the rule of law is dismissed.
The image of Israel has suffered from the war on Gaza. People around the world took to the streets to protest the deaths of 60,000 Palestinians, which has been deemed a genocide. Some western countries have placed sanctions on Israel, and many UN member states now recognize the Palestinian state. Israeli citizens have seen their country’s image tarnished to the point of being called a rogue state. While the Netanyahu government does not recognize the human rights of Palestinians, not all Israeli citizens agree.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist.