Tomer-Yerushalmi likely violated the law and is now in serious legal jeopardy, said Tal Steiner, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, a nongovernment organization based in Tel Aviv. But, she said, the case has nevertheless forced Israelis to examine and question their military’s actions and exposed the populist sentiments leading the charge against unelected government officials.
“This whole story is very sad and ironic because it’s a shoot-the-messenger type situation,” Steiner told NBC News on Monday. “Perhaps this is why they are shooting the messenger right now because it holds a mirror to Israeli society. It’s not fun to look at.”
Aired by an Israeli broadcaster in August 2024, the security camera footage showed several military guards pulling a detainee aside from a larger group of dozens who lay prone in lines on the floor of the Sde Teiman detention center. With a guard dog nearby, the soldiers then pushed the detainee against a wall before the whole group surrounded themselves with shields presumably to block the view of security cameras.
What exactly happened behind their barrier is not clear in the video. But more than 10 soldiers were later arrested on charges of abusing the detainee, five of whom were indicted last year for “acting against the detainee with severe violence, including stabbing the detainee’s bottom with a sharp object, which had penetrated near the detainee’s rectum,” according to a statement from the military at the time. The detainee had suffered “cracked ribs, a punctured lung and an inner rectal tear,” it added. H
It was a rare case of Israel Defense Forces personnel facing prosecution for their actions during Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, and immediately ignited a political clash that fell along familiar battlelines dividing Israel’s increasingly polarized politicians and public.
None of them have been tried yet, but even before the video’s release, a mob of pro-military protesters led by far-right lawmakers broke into the Sde Teiman detention center and a nearby encampment demanding that the investigation be dropped.
But after the video aired, right-wing politicians and commentators attacked military investigators while championing the soldiers and calling for the cases against them to be dropped.
And the abuse from what some Israeli commentators have dubbed the right-wing “venom machine” did not let up after Tomer-Yerushalmi quit.
Ahead of a government meeting Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the leaked video “the most severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced since its establishment. I do not recall one so focused with such intensity,” according to a statement from his office.
Defense Minister Israel Katz also accused Tomer-Yerushalmi of spreading “blood libels” against troops.
Within hours, reports started to appear in Israeli media that Tomer-Yerushalmi was missing after leaving a cryptic note for her family and abandoning her car near a beach, sparking fears that she had taken her own life and an intensive search.
But after she was found alive Sunday night, the vitriol began again.
“We can resume the lynch,” right-wing TV personality Yinon Magal posted on X with a winking-face emoji.
Guy Levy, the spokesman for the ruling right-wing Likud Party went a step further in a telephone interview Monday during which he claimed without providing evidence that the leaked video had been doctored and the charges against the soldiers are false.
Tomer-Yerushalmi’s disappearance, he said, was little more than a “stunt” meant to drum up public sympathy from a left-leaning intellectual class who claim to be preserving Israel’s democratic ideals.
“This is a cultural fight,” he said, adding that those who continue to defend Tomer-Yerushalmi are doing so out of rank political tribalism.
But for Steiner of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, the case had forced Israelis to examine the worsening clash between populist politicians and unelected bureaucrats whom some Israelis view as out of touch.
“It’s not just her personal tragedy, but also the political battle that’s being fought right now,” she said. “I think that’s what’s attracting more of the attention is the fight for power between politicians and administrative professionals.”