The Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court extended the remand of former military advocate general Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi and former IDF chief prosecutor Col. Matan Solomosh on Monday, after the two were arrested in connection with the Sde Teiman video leak scandal.
The court ruled that the pair would remain in detention until Wednesday, after police requested that they be remanded for five days, arguing that there was reason to believe they would attempt to obstruct the ongoing investigation into the leak of footage of soldiers allegedly severely abusing a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention camp.
Tomer-Yerushalmi and Solomosh were arrested on Sunday night over suspicions of leaking the video and “other serious criminal offenses,” including an alleged subsequent cover-up of the leak, with false reports given to officials about an internal investigation into the matter.
Tomer-Yerushalmi resigned from her post on Friday, confessing in her resignation letter that she had been behind the leak.
They entered the courtroom on Monday in civilian clothing, rather than in military uniform, and Tomer-Yerushalmi was accompanied by her husband and daughter.
A police representative told the court that law enforcement was investigating five suspects in the leak and had taken testimony from two others suspected to have been involved in the affair.
The investigation began last Sunday, the police representative told the court.
During the hearing, the police representative said that Solomosh was suspected of knowing that Tomer-Yerushalmi was behind the video leak and trying to help her cover up her role.
Solomosh’s lawyer, Nati Simchoni, argued, however, that his client only knew of the leak in retrospect, and believed Tomer-Yerushalmi was somehow involved but not that she was the source of the leaked footage.
He said that Solomosh was not part of a team appointed by Tomer-Yerushalmi to investigate the incident before police began their own probe, which included Tomer-Yerushalmi’s deputy, Brig. Gen. Gal Asael; and Deputy State Prosecutor Alon Altman.
The team submitted a response to the Supreme Court regarding the leak on September 25, without implicating Tomer-Yerushalmi. By then, Solomosh had already completed his tenure, which his lawyer argued ruled out his involvement in any cover-up.
Simchoni claimed that his client had told investigators he would be willing to undergo a lie-detector test and check his testimony against that of Asael.
He apparently offered his help in the initial investigation overseen by Asael and Altman, but never told them or the police what he knew.
Meanwhile, Tomer-Yerushalmi’s lawyer, Dori Klagsbald, insisted to the court that his client was innocent of obstruction since police had already taken testimony from five suspects and two others involved in the investigation.
There is already a “massive amount of investigative material,” he said, arguing that “in these circumstances it is hard to imagine how exactly one would obstruct the investigation.”
It would be “foolish,” he said, to attempt to conceal evidence from police when the material was already in the hands of law enforcement.
He further argued that “there has been more than enough time” to obstruct the probe. “There is no reason to assume that someone who did not obstruct the investigation from the moment it began would have reason to obstruct it now,” he told the court.
Nevertheless, Judge Shelley Kutin ruled that both Tomer-Yerushalmi and Solomosh would remain in detention until Wednesday at noon — granting only three extra days of detention rather than the five requested by law enforcement.
Police suspect suicide attempt was staged
Tomer-Yerushalmi sparked widespread alarm on Sunday when her family alerted the police that she had not been in contact with anyone in several hours.
A large search operation was launched, involving police, rescue forces and the military, after her car was found abandoned at Hatzuk Beach near Tel Aviv. Hebrew media outlets reported that she had left a letter at home, which some characterized as a “suicide note,” sparking concern for her well-being.
She was found alive and well at a beach in Herzliya some two hours later, after she contacted her husband from a phone that did not belong to her.
Police then arrested her at around 10 p.m., and she was taken for a physical and mental check-up at around 1:30 a.m., which concluded at 4 a.m. She was then admitted to Neve Tirza prison at 6:30 a.m. after being interrogated, according to the police representative.
On Monday morning, Hebrew media reported that police suspected her disappearance on Sunday may have been a staged suicide attempt in order to dispose of her cellphone, which may have incriminating information on it.
According to Channel 12, Tomer-Yerushalmi took two phones with her to the beach — one that would enable her to be located and the other that she tossed into the sea near Tel Aviv.
The abandoned phone has not yet been located.
The letter that she left behind, reported by some outlets as a “suicide note,” was also allegedly staged, with Channel 12 describing it as “an ambiguous, strange letter full of hints that don’t characterize suicide notes.”
The exact content of the letter has not been made public, although unverified reports claimed it included a line reading: “I love you, take care of yourselves,” sparking concern for her life.
Following Tomer-Yerushalmi’s arrest, Hebrew-language media reported that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had instructed the Israel Prison Service chief to place cameras in her cell, “so that she cannot disrupt the investigation” and to ensure her well-being following the suspected suicide attempt.
Police opened a criminal investigation into the leaked Sde Teiman surveillance video last week, and Tomer-Yerushalmi was put on leave due to suspicions regarding her involvement. On Friday, she presented IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir with a resignation letter and acknowledged that she had approved the leak of the video, which seemed to show the abuse of a Palestinian prisoner by Israeli soldiers.
The leaked footage showed soldiers at Sde Teiman taking aside one of the detainees, who had been lying face down on the floor, then surrounding him with riot shields to block visibility while they allegedly committed the abuse. The detainee was subsequently taken away for treatment for severe injuries.
חשיפה של כתב המשפט של חדשות 12, גיא פלג, הערב ב"מהדורה המרכזית": כך תועדו החשודים בפרשת שדה תימן | במצ"ח ממשיכים לחקור את החיילים שנעצרו בחשד להתעללות במחבל חמאס, והערב פורסם התיעוד שעומד במרכז החקירה • כפי שניתן לראות בתיעוד ממצלמות האבטחה במקום, המחבל נלקח הצידה בידי לוחמי כוח…
— שאולי????️????️???? ShAuLi (@Shaulirena) August 6, 2024
Earlier this year, military prosecutors filed an indictment against five reserve soldiers for the abuse. According to the indictment, the five soldiers severely beat and assaulted the prisoner after he was brought to the detention facility on July 5, 2024, leaving him with massive injuries, including broken ribs and an internal tear in his rectum.
The high-profile investigation into the abuse caused outrage among coalition politicians, government ministers, and right-wing activists. When the reservists were detained on July 29, 2024, dozens broke into the detention facility and another army base in an attempt to thwart the arrests.
Detainee at heart of abuse scandal was released to Gaza in deal
Meanwhile, on Monday, lawyers for the defendants in the case announced that the Palestinian security detainee at the center of the Sde Teiman abuse affair was released back to Gaza on October 13 in the framework of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
The right-wing Honenu legal aid organization, which is representing two of the five defendants in the case, said that the Military Advocate General’s Office had informed its attorneys of the development on Monday.
“We call on the Military Advocate General’s Office to annul the indictments immediately,” Honenu said in response to the new information.
