Lawyers for a group of Israeli reserve soldiers charged with the grave abuse of a Palestinian detainee called Sunday for the trial to be dismissed, saying the legal process had been sullied.
Their demands, delivered at a news conference, followed an admission by the military’s chief legal officer that she had authorized a leak of surveillance video of the alleged abuse to local news media, further politicizing an already fraught case that has rocked Israel and caused an international uproar.
The legal officer, Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, resigned on Friday. Four men with their faces hidden by black ski masks stood behind the lawyers as they spoke to reporters at the news conference. The lawyers said they were four of the five indicted reservists.
The five soldiers were indicted in February on charges of abuse and causing severe injury during an assault in July 2024, including breaking the ribs of the detainee, puncturing his left lung and tearing his rectum.
The detainee, a Palestinian man from Gaza, was being held at the time at a prison on the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel. Neither the detainee nor the five suspects have been publicly identified by name.
The case has exposed stark divisions in Israel over the question of accountability for the mistreatment of Palestinians in custody. The case has played out during the war in Gaza, which brought international censure of Israel and accusations of war crimes. Israeli leaders have denied those allegations.
The charges against the soldiers first came to light in July of last year after a group of soldiers were detained on suspicion of having raped a Palestinian man held at the military jail in Sde Teiman, according to court records.
The public debate surrounding the case was inflamed by those initial reports that the detainee had been raped. The indictment did not ultimately include charges of sexual crimes, but said that one of the soldiers stabbed the detainee with a “sharp object,” causing a tear in his rectal wall.
The leaked surveillance video did not show clearly what happened during the roughly 15-minute assault, as the soldiers mostly hid themselves and the detainee. Excerpts broadcast on television showed the soldiers surrounding the detainee as he was pinned against a wall and at one point, the detainee could be seen lying on the floor.
General Tomer-Yerushalmi wrote in her resignation letter, published in the Israeli news media, that she had authorized the release of the footage “in an attempt to counter the false propaganda directed against the military law enforcement authorities” and to protect her staff from a delegitimization campaign by Israelis who opposed the prosecution of soldiers.
Now some Israelis, including members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, are using the revelations about the leaked surveillance footage to try to undermine the case against the soldiers altogether.
Mr. Netanyahu called for an “independent, impartial investigation” of the video leak in his first public remarks since the resignation of the legal officer.
“The incident in Sde Teiman caused immense damage to the image of the state of Israel” and the military, he said.
The lawyers’ news conference, held outside the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, was a highly unusual move.
“Today we unfortunately know that we were witness to a faulty, biased and completely cooked-up legal process,” said Adi Keidar, a lawyer from Honenu, a right-wing legal organization whose members are representing several of the accused soldiers. “Today we demand justice,” he told the news conference, calling for the immediate cancellation of the trial.
Mr. Keidar said all the reservists deny the charges against them.
Israel’s judicial authorities were already under attack by Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line government, which aims to curb the powers of the judicial branch and give more authority to the elected government. Liberal opponents view those efforts as harmful to democracy.
Advocates for the indicted soldiers reject the very notion of Israeli soldiers being prosecuted for any mistreatment of Palestinians in custody, pointing to the cruelty of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the Gaza war.
Some of the lawyers representing the soldiers have asserted that the detainee was a member of an elite unit of Hamas but that was never confirmed by the authorities.
The defense minister, Israel Katz, on Friday accused General Tomer-Yerushalmi of having slandered the soldiers by spreading “a blood libel” and said she would be stripped of her ranks.
The case at Sde Teiman led to Israeli unrest after videos surfaced of Israeli military police raiding the military base to detain soldiers on suspicion of abusing the Palestinian. At least three far-right lawmakers from Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition were among the crowd who gathered outside the base in solidarity with the soldiers.
Dozens of people then surged inside.
Many Palestinians who have been held at Sde Teiman have accused Israeli soldiers of carrying out grave acts of abuse against them.
An investigation by The New York Times published last year found that thousands of Gazan detainees had spent months in limbo at Sde Teiman, in demeaning conditions and without legal recourse.
The site became a major focus of accusations that the Israeli military mistreated detainees.
Gabby Sobelman, Johnatan Reiss and Adam Rasgon contributed reporting.
Isabel Kershner, a Times correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
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