Israel has been shaken by the arrest of its most senior military lawyer, a scandal that has exposed deep divisions inside the country’s government, army, and courts.
Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the Israel Defence Forces’ top legal officer, was detained after admitting that she leaked footage showing soldiers allegedly assaulting a Palestinian detainee, and then misled Israel’s high court about her role.
Her decision, she claimed, was an attempt to protect the integrity of the military’s legal system after rightwing politicians and pundits branded the accused soldiers as “heroes” and investigators as “traitors.”
In her resignation letter last week, Tomer-Yerushalmi said she had authorised the video’s release “to defuse attacks on army prosecutors and investigators” handling the case. But her admission has now led to her arrest on charges of fraud, breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice, and disclosure of official information, according to Israeli media.
The case has sparked a firestorm in Israel, not just over the alleged abuse itself, but over the rule of law in a country already under global scrutiny for its actions in Gaza.
The Sde Teiman Scandal
In July 2024, Israeli prosecutors raided the Sde Teiman military detention centre, a site long accused of housing torture and abuse. Eleven soldiers were detained over the violent assault of a Palestinian man from Gaza, an attack that prosecutors said included anal rape and left the victim hospitalised with broken ribs, a punctured lung, and severe internal injuries.
Five soldiers were later charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm, though none have been named, and none remain in custody.
After the soldiers’ arrests, far-right politicians and protesters descended on Sde Teiman, accusing military investigators of betrayal. Some even stormed the base, demanding that the case be dropped.
Under that intense pressure, Tomer-Yerushalmi leaked the video in August 2024, saying it was an attempt to “debunk false propaganda” targeting army law enforcement.
But rather than calm tensions, the leak fuelled an even greater backlash. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “perhaps the most severe public relations attack Israel has faced since its establishment.”
Collapse of the Legal Firewall
The fallout has been swift and ugly. Protesters have gathered outside Tomer-Yerushalmi’s home shouting “we will give you no peace,” while far-right commentator Yinon Magal mocked her online, posting, “we can proceed with the lynching.”
At one point, fears for her safety escalated after her partner reported her missing and her car was found abandoned near a Tel Aviv beach with a note inside. She was later found safe, only for the public attacks to resume within hours.
The defence minister, Israel Katz, accused her of “spreading blood libels,” while government figures claimed her investigation had “damaged Israel’s image abroad.”
But the arrest of Israel’s top military lawyer raises a deeper question: can Israel still claim to hold itself accountable?
For years, Israel’s leaders have insisted that its independent judiciary protects soldiers from prosecution in international courts. The argument has always been simple: if Israel can investigate itself, The Hague won’t intervene.
Yet that legal shield now appears to be crumbling.
“Don’t they understand we had no choice?” Tomer-Yerushalmi reportedly told colleagues weeks ago, quoted by journalist Ronen Bergman. “The only way to face international legal proceedings is by proving we can investigate ourselves.”
A Nation at Odds with Its Own Laws
Professor Yagil Levy of Israel’s Open University says that, for decades, the role of the military advocate general was viewed as protecting soldiers from international prosecution, not necessarily upholding justice.
“The law wasn’t seen as a value in itself, but as a defence against international tribunals,” Levy explained.
Now, even that pragmatic balance is under siege. The political right has grown increasingly hostile to any legal scrutiny of the military’s actions in Gaza, where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in two years of airstrikes and ground operations.
Levy warned that the government’s erosion of military accountability marks a weakened commitment to international law. “Some on the right even claim Israel is exempt from respecting it,” he said, “offering religious justifications for that view.”
So far, only one Israeli soldier has been convicted for assaulting Palestinians in detention during the war, despite mounting evidence of torture and abuse in Israeli jails, and dozens of deaths in custody. No one has been charged for the high-profile strikes that killed civilians, medics, or aid workers.
Tomer-Yerushalmi’s downfall, once seen as a defender of the military’s legal integrity, has instead become a symbol of a nation tearing itself apart, between the rule of law and the rule of politics.
