🎥 IDF Soldiers Filmed Taking Turns Raping a Palestinian Man in Prison. Israel Investigates Who Leaked the Video

Now, imagine for just a moment, that the roles were reversed. Do you think this story would be breaking news around the world? All over the headlines? Then why not now?

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I’m writing this with a knot in my chest.

A video surfaced from an Israeli detention complex that multiple Israeli outlets universally describe as showing Israeli soldiers gang-raping a blindfolded, handcuffed Palestinian detainee—restrained on the floor for roughly fifteen minutes while reservists take turns.

One report stated the entire assault was captured on surveillance cameras, and then added the part that tells you everything: the Israeli army opened a criminal probe into the leak of the footage, not into the men on camera who committed the crime.

That single choice—target the leak, not the rapists—is the moral map for everything that followed.

According to Middle East Eye on November 2nd, the military moved to appoint a new advocate general to replace Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who resigned after confirming her involvement in getting the surveillance video to the press—“purportedly showing Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian detainee.” That same weekend, a search unfolded along the north Tel Aviv shoreline after Tomer-Yerushalmi went missing. Her car was found near Hatzuk Beach with a letter inside; helicopters and drones scoured the coast. She was later found alive and taken for evaluation. Now, instead of calling her a whistleblower, authorities have detained her and opened an investigation into the leak itself.

Meanwhile, the men accused of the rape? Free. Talking. On television. In one Israeli TV clip, the main suspect is treated as a minor celebrity, explaining how hard his life has become. The victim is a ghost in his own story.

Palestinian human-rights defender Issa Amro described what he saw this way: “The Israeli soldiers who gang-raped a Palestinian detainee… held a press conference boasting that they are still free. They proudly declared: ‘We will prevail!’… [The prosecutor] has now been placed under detention on charges of obstructing the investigation after attempting suicide yesterday during the rapists’ press conference” (@Issaamro).

Muhammad Shehada said the quiet part out loud: “Netanyahu is NOT at all upset that his ‘most moral army’ gang rapes Palestinians systematically & on camera, only that someone leaked that footage to the world. The leaker was fired & is under criminal investigation, the rapists are at large!” (@muhammadshehad2).

And then there’s the Prime Minister himself. As translated by Translating Falasteen (Palestine), Benjamin Netanyahu said the incident “caused immense damage to the image of the State of Israel and the IDF” and called it “perhaps the most severe public relations attack” since the state’s founding. Public relations. Not the law. Not the victim. Not the human being whose body was turned into a weapon against his own dignity.

To make the inversion complete, Defense Minister Israel Katz labeled the footage “one of the most severe blood libels against IDF soldiers,” defended sidelining the chief military prosecutor, and warned that the leak “exposes soldiers to persecution and lawsuits around the world” (Drop Site News quoting and translating Katz, October 30th). Translation: the crisis isn’t the rape; it’s that evidence exists and might reach courts that still remember what law is.

Let’s talk about that law in plain English.

Under international humanitarian law and international criminal law, rape and sexual violence against detainees are among the gravest crimes. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions forbids “outrages upon personal dignity,” including humiliating and degrading treatment—rules that apply in every armed conflict. The Convention Against Torture bans torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in all circumstances. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court explicitly lists rape and sexual violence as war crimes and as crimes against humanitywhen part of a widespread or systematic attack. None of this requires the victim to be a fighter; in detention, the state’s responsibility is higher, not lower.

There’s also command responsibility: if commanders knew or should have known their subordinates were committing crimes and failed to prevent or punish them, they can be criminally liable. That’s not abstract. That’s black-letter law from Nuremberg through tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. When a government hunts the whistleblower while the perpetrators do interviews, the state isn’t merely immoral—it’s legally telling on itself.

I’ve covered a lot of atrocity, but this episode is its own kind of rot because of what came next. Earlier, prosecutors did indict five reservists from the same detention site for “severe abuse”—injuries included broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a torn rectum. Attempts to hold them accountable triggered angry rallies outside bases—mocked by observers as “right-to-rape” rallies—with civilians defending soldiers accused of raping Palestinians. The social cue to every other soldier was unmistakable: if you’re caught, the crowd has your back.

Some will say: “The army says it’s investigating.” Let’s translate that. An investigation that neutralizes the truth-teller and replaces her while the accused hold press conferences is not an investigation of the crime—it’s an investigation of the evidence escaping. Again: the priority was to stop the leak, not to stop the rapists.

Here’s the whole picture you can carry in your pocket:

• The crime: Surveillance footage reportedly shows Israeli reservists gang-raping a blindfolded, handcuffed Palestinian detainee for about fifteen minutes; it was caught on security cameras (Drop Site News, October 29th).

• The official focus: The state moved against the leak—opening a criminal probe into who exposed the video—rather than against the men on camera.

• The rhetoric from the top: Netanyahu framed it as “immense damage” to Israel’s image, a PR attack; Defense Minister Katz called the footage a “blood libel” and warned of lawsuits, backing the prosecutor’s suspension.

• The whistleblower: Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi admitted involvement, resigned, went missing, was found alive near Hatzuk Beach, and is now detained and under investigation over the leak; the army is moving to replace her (Middle East Eye; local reporting).

• The perpetrators’ status: Accused soldiers are free, platformed on TV, and, in the words of Issa Amro and Ounka, boasting while playing victim; prior “severe abuse” indictments sparked supportive crowds.

That’s the truth in five lines. The rest is spin and damage control.

If you’re still with me, you’re family. Join as a monthly, annual, or founding member so I can keep this reporting free for the world, put the receipts on screen when we launch the video show on December 1st, and say plainly what too many outlets are afraid to say.

I also want to name the cost of telling the truth. Over the weekend, as panic spread that Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi might have taken her life, a search by sea, land, and air found her alive. She now faces detention and interrogation for helping the public see a rape the state preferred to hide. Whatever you think of her past decisions, this reality is unmissable: a woman tied to exposing sexual torture is being punished, replaced, and criminalized—while the men in the video are free and famous. That inversion is the headline.

The law matters because it gives us tools when governments pick PR over people. States have a duty to investigate and prosecute sexual violence, not the whistleblower. Universal jurisdiction is real; evidence travels. Borders have memories that outlast news cycles. That is why the language of “blood libel” and PR damage is so revealing: it’s the language of a government more terrified of accountability than of crime.

What comes next matters. It matters whether Israeli authorities arrest and prosecute the men on camera. It matters whether international bodies treat this as the war crime it is, not a messaging headache. It matters whether countries that arm and fund this machine—the United States chief among them—choose law over lobbies.

If you’ve ever wanted to do something that matters in the face of something unbearable, this is one of those moments. Become a member in three minutes. After you join, forward this to three people who care about truth and ask them a simple question: Why are the men who raped a prisoner on video free to go on television while the woman who helped the world see it is in custody? Ask until someone is brave enough to answer.

Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun

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