The Israeli military’s chief legal officer resigned over a criminal inquiry into the leaking of a video that appeared to show soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee arrested during the Gaza War.
Advocate General Major-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi said that she was stepping down because she had approved the video’s leak in August 2024.
The abuse investigation led to criminal charges against five soldiers and stirred an uproar.
The inquiry drew condemnation from right-wing politicians and prompted protesters to storm two military compounds after investigators sought troops for questioning in the case.
A week after the break-in at the bases, a security camera video showing the moments of the alleged abuse was leaked to Israel’s N12 News.
It showed soldiers taking a prisoner aside and crowding around while holding a dog and blocking visibility of their actions with their riot gear.
On Wednesday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said that there has been an ongoing criminal inquiry into the video leak and that Tomer-Yerushalmi was on forced leave.
Tomer-Yerushalmi defended her actions as an attempt to fend off propaganda against the military’s legal department, entrusted with upholding the rule of law, and which she said had been subjected to smears throughout the war.
The footage came from Sde Teiman detention camp, where some of the Hamas militants who took part in the October 7th, 2023 attack that triggered the war are held, alongside Palestinians captured in subsequent months of Gaza combat.
Tomer-Yerushalmi called Sde Teiman detainees “terrorists of the worst kind,” in her resignation letter, but added that this did not take away from the obligation to investigate suspected abuse.
Reuters/Hauwa M.