Former Israeli Military Prosecutor Under Investigation After Assault Video Leak

Israeli police arrested former Military Advocate General, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, on Monday after she went missing for several hours and authorities found a farewell note in her car near a Tel Aviv beach, according to The Times of Israel.

The arrest comes as part of investigations into the leak of a video showing an assault on a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman prison in southern Israel in August 2024. Tomer-Yerushalmi, who resigned last Friday, is suspected of obstructing the investigation into the video leak. In her resignation letter, she acknowledged responsibility for re-sending the video in an attempt to “counter false propaganda against the military law enforcement authorities.”

Israeli media outlets reported that the investigation focuses on determining whether members of the Military Advocate General’s Office were involved in distributing the video. The footage shows soldiers assaulting the detainee, who was later hospitalized with wounds and fractures, while the soldiers formed a barrier around him to prevent the assault from being filmed.

The Israeli army had previously announced the opening of a criminal investigation into the leak, following an indictment issued by the Military Prosecutor’s Office in February 2025 alleging that five reserve soldiers assaulted the Palestinian prisoner in July 2024, causing him serious injuries. The soldiers’ lawyers denied that the detainee was subjected to additional sexual assault, and the court issued a gag order on the publication of the defendants’ names, who remain out of custody.

Israeli and Palestinian human rights reports indicate that more than 10,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, including children and women, who suffer from torture and medical neglect, with recorded cases of deaths and severe injuries among civilian detainees from the Gaza Strip.