Less than a week ago, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was the Israeli military’s top lawyer, tasked with enforcing the rule of law within the nation’s armed forces.
Now, she is under arrest as part of a criminal investigation into the leak of a video showing the alleged abuse, including sexual abuse, of Palestinian detainees in a notorious Israeli military prison.
A longstanding target of Israel’s right-wing, Tomer-Yerushalmi’s rapid fall has quickly emerged as a national scandal, overshadowing the video at the center of the case.
The affair dates back to July 2024, when legal authorities in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) opened an investigation into soldiers who were allegedly shown sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee arrested during the Gaza war as some two dozen other detainees lay face-down nearby at the Sde Teiman military prison.
The investigation and subsequent arrest of the soldiers fueled an intense political backlash, with some right-wing members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition even joining protests and riots outside the Sde Teiman facility and the military court where the soldiers were taken.
I just don’t even know what you can say about a Military who would openly engage in the systematic rape of children as a means of psychological control over kids…
Video appears to show IDF soldiers sexually abusing Palestinian detainee
An Israeli television channel has broadcast CCTV footage allegedly showing Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee.
The video shows dozens of prisoners lying face down on the floor with their hands on the backs of their heads.
One of the prisoners is led away to a discreet corner. Three soldiers then appear to use shields to block the view.
Only a metre or so away, a military dog on a lead can be seen barking fiercely at the prisoner.
The incident, which is said to have taken place at the Sde Teiman prison in July, has been severely criticised by the White House as “deeply concerning” and should be fully investigated.
The facility, in Israel’s Negev region, is holding many Gazans suspected of participating in or aiding the 7 October attacks.
They are held without charge, guarded by IDF reservists and military police, and have no access to lawyers.
In recent weeks, there have been reports that some of the prisoners were raped by guards.
A boy with tears to his rectum and broken ribs was taken to a hospital afterwards.
After previous allegations, Israeli’s actually protested to let the IDF accused rapists go free…
Riots broke out and the prison was stormed by far-right Israelis demanding the release of nine soldiers arrested on suspicion of abuse.
…to be clear, an actual soldier from that unit then appeared on Israeli TV to defend what had happened!!!!!!!!!
How much must the cruelty of Occupation create in the Occupier a level of naked hatred that justifies the sexual rape of teenagers as a psychological tool to terrify those witnessing it?
I just don’t know what to say any more.
Could you imagine that night?
The fear in the air as everyone is forced to lie face down.
The terror as one is dragged to a corner and raped.
The sound, the sobbing, the screams.
Jesus Christ, what have you become for this to be justifiable?
The systematic sexual assault and torture of Palestinian prisoners is a story yet to be told, the horror of this genocide will stain for generations.
How broken is Israel?
Remember, if any one of you feels that this is some how inappropriate, you will be labeled an anti-semite.
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The Israelis say being anti-israel is being anti-semitic.
Anti-semitism now means being anti the gaza genocide. The term now is in the same category as being anti the carpet bombing of North Viet Nam is anti-American or being anti the gulag is being anti-Soviet. The term has been divorced from the idea of sympathy for jewish holocaust victims and Israel filed for the divorce. The term anti semitism has lost its weight.