Top Israeli military lawyer who admitting leaking video, then disappeared now awaits trial

Israel’s military is amid its most sweeping internal reckoning in decades with more than a dozen senior officers facing dismissal or severe disciplinary action and the outright arrest of a general for what is being termed as a “breach of trust.”

A month ago, Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, formerly the Israeli military’s top lawyer, revealed she was responsible for the leak of a video that allegedly shows Israeli soldiers physically and sexually abusing a Palestinian prison detainee last year. But the full extent of the abuse was partially obscured by other soldiers who blocked the view of the security camera with their bodies.

The video sparked outrage across Israel, and some of the soldiers who appeared in the video have been arrested and charged with “assault.” Charges of aggravated sodomy were dropped. The men involved have maintained their innocence.

Tomer-Yerushalmi – a long-standing target of government officials representing right-wing parties – resigned her post as military advocate general of the Israel Defense Forces. But then, according to reports, she was reported missing, sparking speculation that she might have fled the country, been abducted, murdered or committed suicide. She’d left a cryptic note in her house and her car was abandoned.

Within hours, police tracked her phone, and she was found alive in a seaside resort area north of Tel Aviv and was arrested and charged. The phone used to track her and that she reportedly used to leak the video, has not been recovered, amid speculation she dumped it in the sea as part of a cover-up.

Days later, while under house arrest, Tomer-Yerushalmi was hospitalized after what appeared to be a suspected overdose that may have been a suicide attempt from an overdose of pills. The latest reports are that she is in good health and awaiting trial.

There has been some speculation among defenders of the soldiers involved that the security-camera footage may have been “edited in a misleading manner,” though so far there is no proof that is the case.

Earlier this week, more than a dozen senior military commanders were summoned by Israeli Army’s chief lieutenant general, Eyal Zamir, to face charges that their security failures contributed to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that ignited the war in Gaza. Zamir’s office said the officers in question would be fired or disciplined within the military justice system.

On the date of the deadly Hamas attack, Zamir said the military had “failed in its primary mission … to protect the civilians of the state of Israel.” He described the attack, in which a reported 1,200 people were killed, as a “severe, resounding, systematic failure” and that it was essential that the military take action to restore trust and to “set a clear standard of command responsibility.”

Zamir’s actions are considered symbolically significant, even if the officers in question do not come from the military’s highest level, since Israel has yet to carry out a comprehensive investigation into the attack of two years ago.