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Israeli police have arrested a former top military chief legal officer, days after she handed in her resignation over a criminal inquiry into a leaked video that shows soldiers allegedly abusing a Palestinian detainee.
Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was arrested Sunday night, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir confirmed Tuesday. Her decision to step down from her position had been officially accepted by the chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) on Friday.
At a court hearing Monday, the judge extended her detention until Wednesday, according to a copy of the decision.
The decision said she is being held on suspicion of offences including fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of justice.
An investigation is ongoing while she is held in a women’s prison in central Israel.
Police conducted a frantic search for Tomer-Yerushalmi on Sunday after her family raised concerns about her safety and police found her abandoned car near the beach in Tel Aviv, Israel’s Channel 12 reported. Police said she was found soon after the search began.
Former chief military prosecutor Col. Matan Solomesh was also arrested overnight and his detention was also extended, Israeli media reported.
On Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi said that she was stepping down because she had approved the video’s leak in August 2024.
Following her accepted resignation, Defence Minister Israel Katz welcomed the decision.
“Anyone who spreads blood libels against IDF troops is unfit to wear the army’s uniform,” he said in a statement.
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-ins 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.
The Palestinian detainee who was the subject of the alleged abuse in the video leaked by Tomer-Yerushalmi last year was released and returned to Gaza on Oct. 13, according to documentation from the military prosecutor’s office obtained by The Associated Press.
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.
Footage leaked comes from detention centre
The leaked footage came from Sde Teiman detention camp, where some Hamas militants who took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war are held, alongside Palestinians captured in subsequent months of Gaza combat that have been held without charge.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, when arguing for the prison’s closure in 2024, had alleged that detainees at the facility are punished with severe violence, including with attack dogs and sexual assault; are made to sit on the ground blindfolded and handcuffed 24 hours a day and are forbidden from moving or speaking.
Israel’s military is investigating dozens of cases and denies all reports of abuse.
Mahmoud Abu Foul was detained by the Israeli military in late December after troops raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. The 28-year-old had previously lost his left leg in an Israeli airstrike on Jabalia in 2015. After spending more than nine months in Israeli detention without charge before being released this month, he says he was left blind as a result of the torture he suffered. The Israel Defence Forces, which runs some detention centres, previously said it categorically rejects allegations of systematic abuse reported by the United Nations and other human rights groups.
In her resignation letter, Tomer-Yerushalmi called Sde Teiman detainees “terrorists of the worst kind,” but added that this did not take away from the obligation to investigate suspected abuse.
“To my regret, this basic understanding — that there are acts to which even the most vile of detainees must not be subjected — is no longer convincing to all,” she said.
Some politicians were swift to seize on Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation.
Ben-Gvir welcomed the resignation and called for an inquiry into more legal authorities.
He also posted a video of himself standing over Palestinian prisoners who were lying bound on the floor in an Israeli jail, saying that they were Oct. 7 attackers who should receive the death penalty.
Around 1,700 Gaza detainees were freed this month as part of the Gaza ceasefire in exchange for 20 Israeli hostages, some of whom have reported torture and abuse during their captivity.