Taking to X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday night, Bezalel Smotrich demanded “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them”.
Others, including the hard right and ultranationalist politicians, such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, within Israel, have argued that any action – even gang rape – is permissible if it is undertaken for the security of the state.