End of the Sde Teiman Abuse Case: The IDF MAG Withdraws Indictments

On March 12, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military advocate general (MAG), Maj.-Gen. Itay Ofir, published his decision to withdraw the criminal charges filed by his predecessor, Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, on Feb. 19, 2025, against five IDF reserve service members in connection with the Sde Teiman affair. These charges implicated the five soldiers—all members of Force 100 (a military prison riot control squad)—with the crimes of abuse and causing serious bodily harm under aggravated circumstances in connection with the grave mistreatment of a Palestinian detainee.

A series of events drew significant political attention to the case. These included the opening of a criminal investigation against Tomer-Yerushalmi for her purported decision to leak investigation materials to the press and then cover up the leak, which culminated in her resignation on Oct. 31, 2025. Indeed, senior Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, quickly expressed satisfaction with the MAG’s decision, referring to the initial charges as a “blood libel.” Katz even stated that the role of the MAG is to protect IDF soldiers and not the rights of dangerous Hamas terrorists. Some members of the Israeli public have reacted to the new MAG’s decision by viewing the withdrawal as reflecting not only legal considerations but also a response to political pressures.

In this article, we review the decision of the MAG and provide some initial thoughts regarding its possible implications for the Israeli military justice system.

Background

In previous Lawfare pieces we discussed (a) the harsh conditions of detention of Palestinians in the military base of Sde Teiman during the first months of the Israel-Hamas war (2023-2025) and the slow but ultimately significant intervention by the Israeli High Court of Justice that resulted in the detention center’s closure and (b) the leaks and cover-up scandal discovered in late 2025 that led to the MAG’s resignation and a criminal investigation against her. Both contributions addressed the criminal case against the five accused members of Force 100 only peripherally; by contrast, we focus here on the legal decision taken in connection with one particular abuse case.

The Sde Teiman facility previously served as the main initial detention facility for Palestinians detained by the IDF during the first months of its operations in the Gaza Strip. Detainees were held there on suspicion of being members of Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, or otherwise involved in the hostilities against Israel. Despite the fact that the facility was designed as a mere transit facility, in which only initial interrogations and identification were supposed to take place, many detainees remained in Sde Teiman for much longer than originally planned, even though the facility did not have the capacity to serve as a long-term maximum-security detention center.

Multiple reports have described severe abuse of Palestinian detainees held in Sde Teiman, which has led to several criminal investigations. On Feb. 6, 2025, one reservist was convicted of severely abusing a detainee in Sde Teiman following a plea bargain. He was sentenced to 7 months of imprisonment and demoted to the rank of private.

The case of the five members of Force 100 revolved around allegations of serious abuse of a Palestinian detainee in Sde Teiman on July 5, 2024, during a body search undertaken by a group of soldiers. According to physicians who later examined the detainee, he suffered from broken ribs, a lung injury, and a rectal tear. Following the reporting of the injuries by the medical staff, military police opened a criminal investigation and collected approximately 100 witness statements, including from the injured detainee himself. Investigators also seized video footage of the incident, which captured some, but not all, of the attack.

On July 29, 2024, a military police team arrived at Sde Teiman and arrested nine reservist soldiers suspected of involvement in the attack (a 10th soldier was arrested later). The arrest operation triggered large-scale demonstrations in Israel by right-wing activists, including a number of serving members of the Knesset. Some demonstrators breached the Sde Teiman base in an attempt to prevent the soldiers’ arrests. Further riots took place later that day outside another military base—Beit Lid—by demonstrators protesting the decision of a military court to keep the reservists detained.

As we explained in our second article, in order to placate some of the public anger against the arrest of the soldiers, the MAG secretly ordered a short segment of the incriminating video to be leaked to a reporter for News 12, Israel’s top news network. Channel 12 broadcast the footage on Aug. 6, 2024. Instead of calming the situation, the broadcast inflamed tensions. It gave rise to allegations from right-wing politicians that the tapes were doctored (the broadcast did show images from two different detention facilities without clearly distinguishing between them), that broadcasting the video harmed the international reputation of the state, and that the claims in the news item about the acts of sodomy were untrue (charges for sodomy were not ultimately pressed). Around that time, it was also leaked to the press, though it is not clear by whom, that two of the suspects had failed a polygraph test, which they were offered to take in order to support their version of events that the Palestinian detainee had forcibly resisted a routine search. The concerns about the leaks resulted in an internal investigation by the deputy MAG.

On Feb. 29, 2025, an indictment was filed against five of the suspects. They were accused of hitting and kicking the Palestinian detainee, including through the use of a baton and a Taser; one suspect also allegedly stabbed the man’s buttock with a sharp object. The five were accompanied by a search dog during the attack, which took place in an area of the detention facility where body searches were usually conducted. Three additional Force 100 members were in the vicinity—shielding the attack from sight—but they did not assault the man themselves. The five attackers were charged with two sets of offenses under Israeli criminal law and its military penal code—collective causation of serious injury under aggravated circumstances and collective commission of abuse under aggravated circumstances.

On Oct. 29, 2025, the Israeli police opened a criminal investigation into the MAG’s role in the Channel 12 leak and its subsequent cover-up. She resigned two days later. At the time of writing, the criminal investigation against Tomer-Yerushalmi and other senior officers of the MAG Corps is ongoing.

The MAG’s Decision

On Nov. 10, 2025, the minister of defense appointed Itay Ofir to the post of the IDF’s MAG. Following his appointment, Ofir reviewed a number of pending investigations and ongoing criminal cases to decide whether and how to proceed with them. His decision to withdraw the charges in the case of the Sde Teiman Five is his most consequential decision yet.

The decision was published as a six-page document divided into two parts: the factual background and the legal basis for withdrawing the charges. The first part of the decision narrates the background events and the process of consultation undertaken by the MAG regarding his decision in the case. A significant fact mentioned in this part is the release of the Palestinian detainee in October 2025. (He was released as part of the hostage deal that ended the two-year Israeli-Hamas war with the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held in captivity in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.) The second part of the decision provides reasons for withdrawing the charges, citing the public interest in transparency around the decision-making process.

First, the MAG notes that while the evidence on file—including the detainee’s testimony, his medical record, and the surveillance video—portrays the conduct of the accused in a grave and troubling light, the overall evidentiary picture was always complicated. The video did not show most of the acts in question in a manner sufficient to conclusively refute the version of events advanced by the accused (a number of soldiers blocked accidentally or deliberately the camera’s line of vision). The detainee had also described the incident in incoherent ways to different interlocutors and was no longer available to testify at trial and be cross-examined, per the hostage deal. These evidentiary problems, in and of themselves, led the MAG and the prosecution team to conclude that they might face too steep a climb to prove the charges in trial beyond a reasonable doubt.

Second, the MAG discussed the case’s exceptional circumstances. Beyond the aforementioned leaks and the former MAG’s alleged attempted cover-up, the MAG also noted an interview given by one of the military police investigators to Israeli Channel 11, in which he discussed the evidence in the pending case. This, the MAG states, substantially harmed the soldiers’ right to a fair trial. The combined effect of these exceptional circumstances was a procedural flaw that goes to the heart of the case that would likely support an “abuse of process” or “justice defence” motion, if raised by the accused. Israeli Criminal Procedure Law authorizes courts to reject an indictment or the prosecution of a criminal case in which the prosecuting authorities conducted themselves in a manner incompatible with perceptions of justice or legal fairness (such a defense is similar to prosecutorial misconduct doctrines under U.S. law). The defense may be available in Israel even when the harm caused by the prosecution to the defense was nondeliberate or negligent, even as a result of the prosecuting team’s inadvertent acts or omissions.

Third, the MAG noted that the ongoing criminal investigation of the leak and the cover-up will likely prolong the five defendants’ case, given their defense’s interest in accessing potentially exculpatory materials that might be collected in the parallel investigation into the former MAG. This might also adversely affect their fair trial rights.

We are not privy to the raw evidence in the case. However, the MAG’s legal reasoning leaves room for doubt—based on the published reasons—about the propriety of the decision. It especially raises concerns about the extent to which the military prosecution service remained fully committed to pursuing the case after encountering the extent of political backlash that it did. For example, one particularly troubling aspect of the case, which the decision does not adequately explain, is the release of the Palestinian detainee before arrangements were made for him to provide early trial testimony. The MAG’s reasoning also does not describe any efforts by prosecutors to invite him back from Gaza to testify after his release. This arguably reveals a degree of unprofessionalism or apathy on the part of the Israeli authorities (we note that the release might have been carried out without the involvement of the MAG Corps).

Furthermore, the MAG’s concerns about the procedural complexities of holding a criminal trial simultaneously to an investigation into prosecutorial misconduct are not groundless but appear to follow a worst-case scenario regarding its impact on the duration of the proceedings. These problems could have certainly supported a plea bargain in the case—especially in the context of the prosecutor’s misconduct—but it is not obvious to us that they should have led to dropping the charges altogether if the prosecution service was determined to see the case through.

After concluding that the three sets of considerations supported withdrawing the charges, the MAG added the following statement:

The function of the Military Prosecution is to enable the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to carry out its missions, while concurrently enforcing the law against those who act in contravention thereof.

All personnel within the IDF’s law enforcement system, including the Military Prosecution and the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division, have acted and will continue to act to the fullest extent of their abilities in order to fulfill this mandate—both in routine circumstances and in times of emergency, including during the complex period of war. They do so out of a profound sense of duty, dedication, and professionalism.

The resilience of the IDF is grounded, inter alia, in its commitment to operate in accordance with the law and to address conduct that deviates from IDF values, including through the application of criminal measures where warranted.

The Military Prosecution, under the leadership of the Military Advocate General, shall continue to discharge its duties faithfully in service of the IDF and the State of Israel. It shall do so without fear of unfounded criticism or attacks directed at public servants, and with a strong sense of responsibility for the mandate entrusted to it—acting with integrity, impartiality, and professional rigor.

These are strong words, but it appears that the MAG will need more than words in order to regain the internal and international credibility that the battered MAG Corps lost around its handling of the case.

Future Implications

While the MAG’s decision to withdraw the charges against the accused soldiers can perhaps be justified by the combined effect of the case’s evidentiary problems and the potential procedural consequences of the parallel prosecutorial misconduct investigation, the overall outcome of the case raises serious concerns. First, the withdrawal of the case, notwithstanding the extreme seriousness of the charges, creates a risk of impunity and indirectly endorsing the right-wing narrative of the “framing” of the Sde Teiman Five. The soft language in the decision concerning a “grave and troubling” sequence of events does not amount to a clear acknowledgment of unlawfulness of the soldiers’ conduct, nor an effective repudiation of the claim that the military legal system had wrongly framed them. The celebratory manner in which right-wing politicians and the right-wing media have received the decision is likely to reaffirm their “Israel-can-do-no-wrong” narrative, which, in turn, delegitimizes efforts to hold IDF service members accountable for crimes committed against Palestinians.

Second, although the decision refers to professional considerations, it’s impossible to ignore the severe political pressures surrounding the case—including political efforts to discredit the MAG Corps. The leak and cover-up scandal, which was an unwise and allegedly unlawful reaction to the political pressure, further weakened the corps, in a manner that calls into question their ability to conduct high-profile prosecutions against IDF service members. The underwhelming record, so far, of criminal investigations in connection with the Israel-Hamas war (according to IDF statistics published in May 2025, about 1,500 operational investigations and some 60 criminal investigations were opened—excluding investigations of looting—and two criminal prosecutions were filed) raises concerns as to whether the MAG is willing and able to conduct criminal cases in the face of an increasingly hostile political climate. Unless corrected through robust action in other pending investigations, this impression is likely to greatly complicate Israel’s efforts to claim complementary or subsidiarity before international and foreign criminal courts.

Finally, the decision confirms long-standing concerns about the contagious effects of rule-of-law deficiencies in the military justice system and the broader Israeli legal system. The Sde Teiman scandal started with a misuse of a detention facility because the minister of national security had intervened politically in the policy of detainee incarceration. It continued with the Supreme Court dragging its feet to hear the case, and with the Israeli government’s failure to facilitate international visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross to the detention center.

The serious abuse of detainees in Sde Teiman was initially handled strongly by the military police, but the strong political backlash has pushed the military legal system into a tailspin, resulting in professional misconduct and a thwarted prosecution. Cumulatively, the whole affair marks a low point for the rule of law in Israel. In order to bounce back, the legal system, including the military legal system, should find a way to assert its authority vis-a-vis the political environment—a development that appears unlikely in today’s climate of increased hostility between the legal and political universes in Israel.