Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi submitted her letter of resignation to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir at a meeting on Friday in which she admitted guilt for a leaked video.
In July of last year, IDF Military Police arrested nine reservists guarding the Sde Teiman detention center in the Negev as part of a probe into an incident of alleged sexual abuse of an imprisoned Hamas terrorist.
Protesters on Israel’s Right, including Knesset members, accused the IDF’s advocate general of falsely accusing innocent Israeli soldiers.
Tomer Yerushalmi acknowledged in the letter that she had approved the leak of the video, claiming that she did so to “fend off false propaganda directed against the military law enforcement authorities,” Maariv reported.
The security camera footage from inside the Sde Teiman facility purporting to prove misconduct by five IDF reservists was leaked to Israel’s Channel 12 News.
The accused reservists rejected the allegations, claiming in court that the recording had been doctored using footage from two separate days and that they used proportionate force to subdue the terrorist.
In August 2024, a medical opinion submitted to the court suggested the soldiers could be innocent. Professor Alon Pikarsky, director of general surgery at Jerusalem’s Hadassah-University Medical Center, said the terrorist had possibly injured himself by inserting a foreign body.
Police said they would summon Tomer-Yerushalmi, along with other members of her office, for questioning in the coming days.
Her resignation came after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that he intended to fire her.
“In light of the severity of the suspicions and the sensitivity of the role of the [Military Advocate General] in charge of enforcing the law and setting legal norms throughout the IDF, the Minister of Defense intends to begin the process of appointing a new Military Advocate General as soon as possible,” Katz said in a statement earlier on Friday.
On Wednesday, Tomer Yerushalmi went on leave when the IDF announced that a criminal probe had been opened into the leak, adding “elements in the Military Advocate General’s Office” were being investigated.
Katz said on Wednesday that the leak gave rise to “one of the most serious blood libels ever made” against the Israeli military, exposing soldiers “to persecution and lawsuits around the world.”
Following the announcement of the leak investigation on Wednesday, lawyers for several defendants demanded that military prosecutors drop the criminal charges against their clients.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the decision to open an investigation “a dramatic shift in protecting democracy from criminal behavior disguised as legal action. Everyone implicated in the matter should be held accountable,” he said on Wednesday.
Likud Party MK Ofir Katz said the video “severely harmed IDF soldiers, led to blood libels against them worldwide, and someone must pay.”
Fellow Likud Party lawmaker Avichai Boaron said the “fabricated video” was merely “the tip of the iceberg of a system that has done everything, including tarnishing Israel’s reputation in the world, to advance its own agenda in opposition to decision-makers and the elected leadership.”
In September 2024, Israel’s Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, rejected a petition asking it to order the closure of Sde Teiman.
The makeshift detention center near the southern city of Beersheva has been housing terrorists captured in Gaza, many of whom were directly involved in the attacks and atrocities against civilians on Oct. 7, 2023.
While the Supreme Court stopped short of ordering the facility’s closure, it mandated that the state must strictly adhere to legal requirements in its treatment of prisoners. The ruling came amid significant changes at Sde Teiman, with Jerusalem having drastically reduced the number of detainees there from some 700 at its peak to just several dozen.
