Israel’s top military prosecutor resigned Friday, admitting she was responsible for leaking a video showing soldiers assaulting a Palestinian detainee at a notorious military detention center, according to excerpts of the letter published by Israeli media.
The admission has embroiled the prosecutor, Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, in a firestorm of criticism from the right-wingers dominating Israeli politics who say her actions betrayed the state.
The chain of events underscored how Tomer-Yerushalmi, widely viewed by the international community as being too soft on the wartime conduct of Israeli soldiers, has little room to maneuver in Israel because of Israel’s far-right political climate and amid repeated efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition to overhaul the country’s judicial system.
The leaked video was aired last year by Israel’s Channel 12 and purported to show an incident in which soldiers at the Sde Teiman detention facility in southern Israel had sodomized a Palestinian detainee from Gaza.
Israel’s military was investigating the case at the time and had arrested soldiers for suspected involvement, prompting fury from hard-line ultranationalists who violently overran the facility in protest.
