For weeks, Israel has been transfixed by a scandal that seems to have leapt from the pages of a political thriller: the abrupt downfall and arrest of Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the Israeli army’s top legal officer, following her admission that she authorized the leak of explosive footage showing the alleged sexual abuse of a Palestinian detainee by Israeli soldiers. The chain of events has not only exposed deep fissures within Israeli society but has also cast a harsh spotlight on the nation’s military, political, and legal institutions.
According to the Associated Press, the saga began in earnest on November 3, 2025, when Tomer-Yerushalmi resigned after confessing to leaking a surveillance video that depicted Israeli soldiers at the Sde Teiman military prison assaulting and sodomizing a Palestinian detainee with a knife. The incident, which took place on July 5, 2024, had already been under investigation by the Israeli Defense Forces since the summer, but the leak brought the case into the public eye with an intensity that few could have anticipated.
As reported by CNN, the video first surfaced on Channel 12 in August 2024, though Sde Teiman had already been the subject of disturbing reports months earlier. In May, three sources detailed abuses at the base, prompting Israeli authorities to announce plans in June to gradually shutter the facility. But the leak of the video, which was intended by Tomer-Yerushalmi to underscore the seriousness of the allegations, instead triggered a political firestorm—one that quickly shifted focus from the alleged abuse itself to the act of leaking and the person responsible for it.
Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation letter, cited by the AP, revealed her rationale: she hoped to counter the growing perception that the military was unfairly targeting its own soldiers, a belief that she said was endangering the military’s law enforcement capabilities. “Unfortunately, this basic understanding — that there are actions which must never be taken even against the vilest of detainees — no longer convinces everyone,” she wrote. Her words, meant as a warning, instead became a rallying point for critics on both sides.
Following her resignation, Tomer-Yerushalmi vanished, leaving behind a cryptic note and her car near a Tel Aviv beach. The disappearance set off a frantic search, including the deployment of military drones, as fears mounted that she might have taken her own life. She was found alive on the beach late Sunday night, but her reappearance only intensified the vitriol. Right-wing politicians and commentators, including TV personality Yinon Magal, accused her of staging the suicide attempt to destroy potential evidence. “We can resume the lynch,” Magal posted on X, his words dripping with sarcasm.
Within hours, Tomer-Yerushalmi was arrested and detained on suspicion of fraud, breach of trust, obstruction of justice, and unauthorized disclosure of information, as CNN reported. Her detention was extended until November 6, 2025, and she is currently being held at a women’s prison in central Israel. Former chief military prosecutor Col. Matan Solomesh was also arrested in connection with the investigation, though the Prime Minister’s office has declined to comment on Solomesh’s case.
The scandal has drawn sharp political battle lines. Defense Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a prominent figure in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, wasted no time in denouncing Tomer-Yerushalmi, vowing to take “all necessary measures” against her, including the possibility of stripping her rank. He accused her of “criminal conduct under the pretext of the law,” while Netanyahu himself lamented the leak as “the worst PR disaster in Israeli history.” The Minister of National Security echoed these sentiments, calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the leak.
Yet the political furor has, in many ways, overshadowed the original allegations of abuse at Sde Teiman. The AP’s reporting details the harrowing experience of the Palestinian detainee at the center of the case: after the assault, he was transported to a civilian hospital in life-threatening condition, suffering from blunt trauma, fractured ribs, and a perforated rectum that required surgery. He was later released back to Sde Teiman and, in October 2025, returned to Gaza as part of a prisoner exchange brokered with American mediation. The case against the accused soldiers remains pending before the military court, but the victim’s testimony may now be out of reach.
The scandal has also ignited fierce debate over the independence of Israel’s judiciary and the government’s influence over legal proceedings. Justice Minister Yariv Levin has publicly questioned the involvement of certain officials in the investigation, suggesting that “anyone with conflicts of interest will not be involved.” The Baharav-Miari Office, in turn, accused Levin of unlawful interference that could hinder the investigation’s progress. According to CNN, this case is part of a broader trend of the ruling coalition’s efforts to reshape the balance of power between Israel’s legal authorities and its political elite.
Meanwhile, the public’s attention remains riveted on the spectacle of Tomer-Yerushalmi’s downfall. The AP notes that her case is the latest in a string of high-profile departures from Israel’s security establishment, with many top officials replaced by those seen as loyal to the current government. Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, told the AP that the episode is reminiscent of the bitter divisions that gripped Israel in the lead-up to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack and the subsequent war in Gaza. He warned that the harsh rhetoric and personal attacks directed at Tomer-Yerushalmi should serve as a “stop sign” to Israeli society, which he fears is veering toward the kind of internal strife that marked the period before the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
“It was very sad to see how the internal discourse can bring about such potentially tragic outcome on a personal level,” Plesner said, emphasizing the need for a more civil debate over the nation’s differences.
As the legal and political wrangling continues, three major questions remain unresolved: whether Israeli soldiers committed abuse at Sde Teiman; whether civilians, including members of parliament, tried to disrupt the investigation; and whether Tomer-Yerushalmi herself broke the law in leaking the video. For now, the country remains fixated on the scandal’s every twist and turn, even as the underlying issues of justice, accountability, and national identity hang in the balance.
The events surrounding Tomer-Yerushalmi’s arrest have left Israel grappling with uncomfortable questions about its values, its institutions, and the direction in which it is headed—a reckoning that shows no sign of abating soon.
