Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi is a major general in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) who served as the chief military advocate from September 1, 2021. Previously, she served as the gender affairs advisor to the chief of staff of the IDF.
On October 31, she resigned after admitting to leaking footage showing the gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman prison facility on July 5, 2024. The shocking video was broadcast on Channel 12 on August 6, 2024.
Tomer-Yerushalmi is a whistleblower now under arrest, and supporters fear for her safety. Supporters of the right-wing extremist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are calling her a traitor, while his critics are calling her a hero.
She left a note to her family, and then went missing. Authorities were searching on land and in the sea with flares and helicopters after her family had reported her missing to the police. However, she was found safe on a beach in Tel Aviv on October 2, and subsequently was arrested.
The root cause of the issue is Israeli apartheid, which is a system of institutionalized segregation and discrimination in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and to a lesser extent in Israel proper. This system is characterized by near-total physical separation between the Palestinian and the Israeli settler population of the West Bank, as well as the judicial separation that governs both communities, which discriminates against the Palestinians in a wide range of ways.
According to the Israeli human rights group Btselem, the Israeli regime enacts in all the territory it controls (Israeli sovereign territory, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip) an apartheid regime. One organizing principle lies at the base of a wide array of Israeli policies: advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one group-- Jews--over another--Palestinians.
Jewish prisoners in Israel have rights, but Palestinians do not. The Israeli Jewish culture views non-Jews as inferior people, bordering on non-human. If a Jewish prisoner was gang raped, authorities would find and punish those involved to the full extent of the law. But, when a Palestinian prisoner is gang raped by Jewish soldiers, the rapists are called heroes.
Tomer-Yerushalmi leaked the video because she cared about the legal process and could see there was a severe breakdown of the legal system in Israel. Extremists were calling the IDF soldiers heroes, and she knew that military law is the backbone of any country. Once you allow military law to be dismissed, the rule of the jungle sets in, and no chain of command can survive.
The Jewish State of Israel likes to boast it is based on democracy. However, once the legal system is dismissed as unpatriotic, the country is no longer democratic.
The UN issued a report after reviewing the case, and noted that Palestinian prisoners at Sde Teiman were often shackled, forced into stress positions, denied toilets and showers and beaten, including children. Some prisoners faced sexual violence, such as sodomy, electric shocks and rape.
The leaked video showed IDF soldiers grabbing and taking a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner to the side, then surrounding him with riot shields to prevent the rape being directly seen.
For 15 minutes, the accused kicked the detainee, stomped on him, stood on his body, hit him and pushed him all over his body, including with clubs, dragged his body along the ground, and used a taser gun on him, including on his head, the original indictment stated.
Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, exposed the medical report that listed his injuries as a ruptured bowel, severe anal and lung injuries, and broken ribs as a result of the assault. He later required surgery.
Netanyahu's right-wing coalition politicians, along with others, were outraged that the IDF soldiers were under investigation of abuses, and after the soldiers were detained on July 29, 2024, an attempt was made to prevent their arrests involving breaking into a detention facility and an army base.
About nine IDF soldiers were detained for their part in the rape, with four being released quickly, and five remained in detention. In February, the five were indicted for severely abusing the Palestinian prisoner, but the charge of rape was not included, and the trial is ongoing.
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