A Dangerous Israeli Scandal | How a Leaked Video of a Notorious IDF Detention Center Could Help Netanyahu Take Down Israel's Democracy
The scandal rocking Israel since last Wednesday, involving the chief prosecutor of the Israeli military, allegations of violence and abuse at a detention center built during the Gaza war and a violent break-in by lawmakers into military facilities, is a difficult one to follow – for Israelis, and also for those watching it from afar.
There are multiple layers to the story, and events are developing at a very fast pace. But despite the complicated nature of it, the "Sde Teiman affair," as it has come to be known in the Israeli media, is worth understanding. And its implications could be dramatic for Israeli politics and society.
At the heart of the story is the Sde Teiman detention center, which was created during the war in Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians arrested in Gaza were sent to this military installation outside the city of Be'er Sheva for detention and interrogation.
Formally, all of them were suspected of being members of Hamas; in reality, however, many were held there for weeks or months, superficially questioned, and eventually released back to Gaza. Upon returning, they described appalling conditions and alleged abuses that took place at the top-secret site.
The allegations regarding Sde Teiman became a source of international embarrassment for Israel, with friendly governments demanding access to the site and inspect its conditions in it.
But the lid over the controversial detention center was fully lifted only on July 29, 2024, when military police raided the base, took documents and questioned reservists who were suspected of abusing detainees. The reservists, members of a unit known as "Force 100," violently blocked and harassed the officers who came to investigate them. Within minutes, the incident became the top news story in the country.
What happened next was a frightening display of lawlessness and anarchy, as an angry mob broke into the Sde Teiman base, led by lawmakers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, including some from his own Likud party.
They began hunting for the military police team behind the investigation, and once they discovered that the investigators – and some of the suspects taken for questioning – had been transported to another base in central Israel, the mob was on the move, soon breaking into that base as well.
Israeli soldiers tried desperately to stop the violent intruders from releasing the suspects by force, while the Israeli police stood by, refusing to provide help to the army – a reflection of its failures and twisted priorities under the leadership of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Despite this outburst of violence, however, the investigation continued, and five reservists were charged with aggravated assault. Still, large swaths of the public – especially supporters of the Netanyahu government – were convinced that these indictments were wrong and part of a supposed witch hunt against the soldiers. The lawmakers who led the violent break-in were treated with kid gloves by the police, and no charges against them have been filed, more than a year after the events.
It would have been an easier story to tell if it simply ended this way – with a military determined to investigate and punish soldiers who abuse detainees, showing a better side of Israel than the failed police and the extremist politicians in the current government.
But the Military Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, made a series of mistakes that turned this into a much more complicated affair. Instead of waiting for the court to hear and judge all the available evidence, she instructed her team to leak a video showing the suspects allegedly abusing a Palestinian detainee to Israel's Channel 12 News.
The leak of such sensitive material from an ongoing investigation is by itself an illegal act, according to the rules of the IDF. Once the video was published on television, an internal investigation inside the military was launched into the leak – ironically, led by the prosecutor's team.
This represented a total absurdity: The person responsible for the leak, or at least for approving it, was now charged with investigating it. To make things worse, she lied to the military's chief of staff and to Israel's attorney general, keeping both of them in the dark about her involvement in the leak.
Last week, the Israel Police learned of new information that pointed at Tomer-Yerushalmi and her staff as the source of the leaked video. This development became public on Wednesday, with a bombshell announcement by the military that an investigation into the leak was opened, and that Tomer-Yerushalmi had asked to go on leave until its resumption.
By Friday, her vacation turned into a resignation, accompanied by a letter in which she took full responsibility for the leak, admitting that it was her decision to pass the video to Channel 12.
Tomer-Yerushalmi explained her action by saying that presenting the video of the abuse to the public was necessary in order to push back against false allegations hurled at Israel's law enforcement. But her actions led to the opposite of her desired result: The investigation into the leaking of the video and the multiple lies that the top military prosecutor told along the way are playing into the hands of the government in its crusade against Israel's independent judiciary.
Netanyahu and his minions are already using the news to make a sweeping argument against all parts of the judicial system, and to renew their calls for firing the independent and fearless attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara.
What Tomer-Yerushalmi did was unforgivable, and she must pay a price for it. The worst part of it all is that some members of the government are now using her actions as an excuse to try and shut down the original Sde Teiman investigation, and let those suspected of abusing Palestinians walk away unscathed, calling any scrutiny a "blood libel" against the IDF. But two wrongs don't make a right.
The new scandal can't erase the original one, and the violent break-in that followed it and until today has still not been properly investigated. The result of it all is a perfect storm that threatens to take down much more than just the career of one senior officer, but entire democratic norms and institutions in Israel.