The torture video shaking Israel to its core Revelation that military’s legal officer leaked footage reignites furore around alleged abuse of Palestinian captives 1/2

Masked guards pull a blindfolded prisoner to his feet from a face-down position on the floor. He is marched into a corner, where Israeli soldiers have formed a barrier with riot shields, blocking the man from the view of a nearby security camera. He is surrounded and, as military guard dogs bark, there is movement from behind the shields.

It is not exactly clear from the leaked footage what is happening, but the Palestinian man – a suspected terrorist – was later admitted to hospital with severe injuries to his ribs and rectum. The video of the abuse at the Sde Teiman detention facility was first aired last year by Israel’s Channel 12 and led to an investigation.

However, before the inquiry could take its course, the leaked video prompted a backlash from politicians on the Right, including those close to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, who dismissed accusations against the guards as a “blood libel”.

After rumbling on for more than a year, the scandal reignited last week when Maj Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the IDF’s chief legal officer, admitted to leaking the video.

She resigned from her post on Friday after making the admission. On Monday, authorities said that she had been arrested after disappearing for several hours on Sunday, leading to speculation over a possible suicide attempt.

Concerns over political influence on IDF On Sunday, Mr Netanyahu characterised the fallout from the leaked video as “perhaps the most severe propaganda attack against the State of Israel” in its history.

Israel Katz, the defence minister, said that anyone who fabricates “blood libels against Israeli soldiers was unworthy of donning IDF uniform”.

The incident in the southern Negev Desert has exposed, in the view of opponents to the current government, the creeping politicisation of the IDF. Maj Gen Tomer-Yerushalmi appeared to be a model servant of the state.

Only the second woman to rise to the position, in 2021 she was appointed chief military advocate – effectively the IDF’s top lawyer. However, the 51-year-old mother of three is now under investigation over the leak.

She had previously submitted an official statement to the High Court of Justice claiming she could not locate the source of the leak. If leaking the video was sufficient to end her stellar legal career in the IDF, allegedly lying about it to Israel’s top court could be enough to land her in jail.

Maj Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi Maj Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the IDF’s chief legal officer, admitted to leaking the video

She is due to be questioned by police this week over her actions, and after significant concerns for her welfare when her car was found abandoned near a cliff-topped beach near Tel Aviv, officials said she had been found “alive and well”.

Maj Gen Tomer-Yerushalmi’s rapid fall from grace has shocked Israel. But it is why she felt the need to leak the video in the first place that is driving the public row. The allegations of abuse at Sde Teiman against reservists from the IDF’s Unit 100, including a captain and a major, were already in the public domain before Channel 12 first broadcast the footage in Aug 2024.

The fact that the detainee was injured so grievously that he had to be admitted to a civilian hospital saw to that. With rumours of not just this incidentbut allegations of systematic abuse at Sde Teiman beginning to reach the international press, the Military Advocate General Office began an investigation, on Maj Gen Tomer-Yerushalmi’s orders.

It was the investigation into the IDF’s soldiers that first prompted backlash from senior figures within Israel’s government.

The abuse allegations after all were the last thing the government needed, with Israel’s international reputation tanking due to the brutality of the Gaza campaign and war crimes indictments for the prime minister in the offing.

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2/2

The country was also still in the grip of profound shock and, for many citizens, fury at the Oct 7 massacre, withextremely limited concern for the treatment of detained Palestinians.

The backlash against the investigation included violent scenes as protesters, including politicians, broke into two military compounds in protest at the investigation.

A huge amount of political pressure, both public and,it is alleged, privately, was also directed at Maj Gen Tomer-Yerushalmi to drop the probe, including accusing her of manufacturing the allegations.

Her decision to leak the video evidence has been seen as her essentially buckling under this pressure– a desperate act by a hitherto by-the-book lawyer determined to prove that her team were not making things up. It may well prove disastrous for her personally. Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi search

There was concern for Maj Gen Tomer-Yerushalmi after her car was found abandoned near a cliff, but officials said she had been found ‘alive and well’

Elias Others worry that, more importantly, thefact that such a senior IDF officer could come under such political pressure in the first place indicates an erosion of respect for the neutrality of the military.

=For critics of Mr Netanyahu, the so-called “MAG affair” shows that having allegedly tried to politicise Israel’s judiciary, leading to months of protest before the war, he is now trying the same with the military.

Mr Katz, seen as both a Netanyahu yes-man but also personally ambitious, is already accused of holding up the sign-off of senior military appointments– most of which are traditionally beneath the purview of ministers – in an effort to ensure political loyalty among the high command.

At the same time,Yariv Levin, the justice minister, istrying to warn Gali Baharav-Miara, Israel’s attorney general, from any involvement in the fallout of the Tomer-Yerushalmi case.

It follows the significant public disquiet over the dismissal of Ronen Bar, the director ofShin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, earlier this year after he launched an investigation into Qatari influence on Mr Netanyahu’s staff.

The worry is that while Israel has always had rumbustious politics, the neutrality of its professional military and security services, which have traditionally remained sacrosanct, is under threat.

A lawyer for one of the five military guards at Sde Teiman has now called for the prosecutions to be dropped, arguing that proliferation of the now notorious video means his client cannot get a fair trial. Whether or not that argument succeeds, Israel’s reputation as a country with the rule of law is once again in the dock.

https://archive.is/Cf8vI

Local News

Appeals court grants Justice Department request to pause daily meetings between Border Patrol commander, judge

By Sara Tenenbaum

Updated on: October 29, 2025 / 5:21 PM CDT / CBS Chicago

A federal appeals court granted a request from the Justice Department for an administrative stay pausing an order that requires Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino to meet in person with U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis each day.

Ellis ordered the meetings after a hearing on Tuesday in federal court over alleged violations by Bovino and other federal agents of her temporary restraining order largely prohibiting the use of tear gas and other riot control measures on journalists, protesters and clergy during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago.

In response to numerous filings regarding violations of that order, Ellis instructed Bovino to meet with her every weekday evening to go over the events of the day until a preliminary injunction hearing on Nov. 5.

In their filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, lawyers for the government argue the order "far exceeds the recognized bounds of discovery" and "significantly interferes" with Bovino's function, which the government argues is "ensuring the Nation's immigration laws are properly enforced."

They also argue the meetings are "untethered to the plaintiffs' underlying claims" and go beyond reasonable necessity to comply with the court orders already in place.

The DOJ argues the government will suffer irreparable harm because Bovino will have to prepare for each meeting and then appear in court at times he'd otherwise be working in his law enforcement capacity.

The government sought an immediate administrative stay of the order, which would effectively freeze it until the appellate court can make a more permanent ruling on the government's motion for a permanent stay.

Just before 4 p.m. Wednesday, the court granted the administrative stay. They gave the plaintiffs in the case until 5 p.m. Thursday to respond to the petition, meaning it is unlikely Bovino will be required to appear in court for a meeting on Thursday either.

However, the appeals court's order does not indefinitely block Ellis' order for Bovino to meet with her. The appellate court could find the request reasonable and reinstate the requirement for Bovino to meet with Judge Ellis daily.

CBS News Chicago legal analyst Irv Miller said the appellate court's decision, at this point, is only a temporary win for the Trump administration.

"The 7th Circuit said, 'Okay, I tell you what, he doesn't have appear daily anymore," he said. "This is a temporary measure, just probably for the next couple days before they make a substantive decision on the case as to whether he does or does not have to come in."

Miller said the appeals court's order also does not change a requirement for Bovino to wear a body camera, and for the government to turn over all reports documenting when agents used force against members of the public, as well as body camera footage of those interactions by Friday.

"In the grand scheme of things, a very minor victory for the government," Miller said. "A short-term win, but the merits of the case will yet to be decided."

What to fuck is wrong with these judges? They are insane radicals

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/justice-department-appeals-court-gregory-bovino-judge-sara-ellis/

Victor Davis Hanson: The ‘Schumer Shutdown’ Gains Traction Each Passing Day

Victor Davis Hanson

In today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,”Victor Davis Hanson and Sami Winc talk about former President Barack Obama, including his unlikability and growing irrelevance.

This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.

Sami Winc: Barack Obama this week has been in all sorts of news, not only in the news, but also commercials, since you’re speaking of it. And the “Yes on Proposition 50” in California commercial, which would allow redistricting in California so that they could get more Democrats in. Everybody knows that.

But I thought, in addition to that, what was interesting is there’s anew book out by Jonathan Karl called “Retribution,” and he writes in it that Obama was angry at [Rep. Nancy] Pelosi for immediately jumping on [then-Vice President] Kamala Harris as the candidate because he, in fact, wanted to see more of a choice processgone through with the Democrats after [President] Joe Biden stepped out. I was wondering what your thoughts were on that.

Victor Davis Hanson: He didn’t get the message in 2016. He had come out of the tea party imbroglio, the big midterm defeat of 2010.He had that reelection in 2012, but people didn’t like his border policies, they didn’t like Obamacare, and he was polling where [President Donald] Trump is, or even a little bit lower.

And then a big, bright light bulb went off in his head once Hillary [Clinton] started to square off against Trump, and it said, “You know, people don’t like me. I am a phony. They’re sick of me. But Donald Trump and Hillary are polarizing people. So, my last year in office, I’m just going to phone it in. Like I once said that I wanted a third term if I could just phone it in from the basement. So, I’m just gonna do that. I’m gonna go play golf. You’re not gonna see me, you’re not gonna hear me.”

And the more people do not see or hear Barack Obama, the more they’d like him. They like the idea of a suave, charismatic, first African American president. But they don’t like to be lectured, hectored, sermonized by him, and they’re sick of his stupid voice, his modulating it. When he talks to an African American class, “Oh, what you be doing?”

https://youtu.be/ZSUwHdLVcNI