Israeli troopers collect on the gate to the Sde Teiman navy base, as individuals protest in assist of troopers being questioned for detainee abuse. File.
| Picture Credit score: Tsafrir Abayov
Israel’s navy on Thursday (March 12, 2026) stated it was dropping expenses towards 5 troopers accused of beating and sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee in an alleged assault partially caught on digicam.
The choice, which got here as a lot of the nation’s consideration was targeted on the warfare with Iran, closed a flashpoint case that has bitterly divided Israel for the reason that troopers have been arrested in 2024 on the infamous Sde Teiman navy jail, prompting anger from members of the far-right authorities and hard-line ultranationalists who violently overran the jail in protest.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the announcement, whereas human rights teams accused the navy of ignoring one of many gravest situations of abuse within the nation’s community of wartime prisons.
“Israel’s navy advocate normal simply gave his troopers license to rape — as long as the sufferer is Palestinian,” stated Sari Bashi, government director of the Public Committee Towards Torture in Israel, after the case was dismissed. She stated the choice was “the newest in an extended line of actions that whitewash abuses towards detainees whose frequency and severity have worsened since Oct. 7, 2023.”
Mr. Netanyahu welcomed the choice, saying that “the state of Israel should pursue its enemies, not its heroic fighters.”
The now-dismissed indictment towards the troopers accused them of an assault that included dragging a Palestinian prisoner alongside the ground, stepping on him, tasering him, and sexually assaulting him by stabbing him within the rectum. The Palestinian was taken to an Israeli hospital with fractured ribs and a perforated rectum that required surgical procedure earlier than he was returned to the jail.
The allegations of abuse on the facility gained steam when, in August 2024, Israeli information broadcast a leaked video of the alleged assault.
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The video confirmed a bunch of masked troopers wresting a detainee from the bottom, the place he and different Palestinians have been mendacity face down and handcuffed in a fenced-in pen, and taking the detainee to an space of the pen they cordoned off utilizing shields.
In its Thursday (March 12, 2026) determination dismissing the case, the navy’s prime authorized officers stated the costs towards the troopers have been being dropped as a result of the video didn’t present abuse violent sufficient to advantage a prison conviction and had been improperly leaked to the media. The choice added that the Palestinian sufferer had since been launched again to Gaza, creating an “absence of certainty” he would be capable to testify in a trial.
In November 2025, after a lot hypothesis about how the leaked video bought out, Army Advocate Common Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi — the highest authorized official within the navy — admitted that she had permitted its launch, saying she had wished to indicate how severe the abuse was and persuade individuals the navy had an obligation to analyze.
Going through an uproar from Mr. Netanyahu’s authorities, she abruptly resigned after which disappeared, solely to be discovered phoneless on a Tel Aviv seaside after a frantic search by authorities. The cellphone, believed to carry attainable proof towards her, was later recovered within the sea.
The Related Press investigated allegations of inhumane remedy and abuse at Sde Teiman earlier than the surveillance video.
The jail was arrange after Oct. 7, 2023, to carry Palestinians rounded up in Gaza throughout Israel’s warfare towards the Hamas militant group. The secretive facility rapidly gained notoriety as staff and Palestinians free of detention described scenes of abuse and torture and Israeli rights teams petitioned the nation’s prime court docket for it to be shuttered.
Israel has lengthy been accused of failing to carry its troopers accountable for crimes dedicated towards Palestinians. The allegations have intensified throughout the warfare in Gaza. Israel says its forces act inside navy and worldwide regulation and says it completely investigates any alleged abuses.
Revealed – March 13, 2026 11:10 am IST