Western Media Won’t Call IDF Gang Rape What It Is

Western media has failed to accurately describe events at the heart of an Israeli military scandal, after the country’s top military lawyer was arrested for leaking footage of IDF soldiers allegedly gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner in a detention centre. 

The attack was so brutal that the man was hospitalised with a ruptured bowel and intestines, severe anal and lung injuries and broken ribs. He needed multiple surgical operations for his injuries. The soldiers “inserted a sharp object into [his] anus and ripped his rectum apart”, according to Mondoweiss. 

However, Western mainstream media outlets including Sky News, the BBC, Channel 4, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Times, The Telegraph and The Independent have failed to use the word ‘rape’ in their headlines when reporting on the story. The incident has been largely referred to as ‘abuse’.

The victim was being held without justification in notorious Israeli torture camp Sde Teiman – a military base in the Negev desert where Palestinians are subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment such as being held in cages, blindfolded, shackled to hospital beds, attacked by dogs and forced to wear nappies. He was never charged with or tried for any crime.

Major general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi admitted last week that she had leaked footage of the alleged gang rape of the Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman in August 2024. She was arrested on 2 November and has been charged with multiple offences, including fraud, breach of trust, obstruction of justice and abuse of office.

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the leak “perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced”. His energy minister, Eli Cohen, took to Israeli TV over the weekend to say that Tomer-Yerushalm was “supposed to be the bulletproof vest, the protector, of the soldiers. 

“Instead of that, she stabbed them in the back… In this case, we are talking about treason.”

Defence minister Israel Katz accused Tomer-Yerushalm of participating in “blood libel” against the alleged rapists. 

Tomer-Yerushalm leaked the video after prosecutors faced widespread protests and political outrage in Israel for taking the “vanishingly rare” step of investigating the alleged abuse and rape of a Palestinian detainee. In her resignation letter, Tomer-Yerushalm said the leak was “an attempt to debunk false propaganda against army law enforcement bodies”.

The hospital the victim was taken to reportedly sparked the investigation by following procedures for victims of sexual assault.

Back in the summer of 2024, protesters gathered outside Sde Teiman calling for the investigation to be dropped in what were dubbed “right to rape” demonstrations on social media. They included Knesset member Nissim Vaturi from Netanyahu’s Likud party, far-right Religious Zionism Knesset member Zvi Sukkot and heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu from Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party. Some protesters broke into the military base. 

Following the leak in August 2024, five IDF reservists were charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm to a detainee. None were charged with rape. On 2 November, their charges were downgraded to “severely abusing” the detainee. 

The soldiers have not been named and are currently not in custody or under any legal restrictions.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal told Novara Media: “The documented evidence of the torture and killing of Palestinian detainees is yet another aspect of Israel’s genocidal campaign. The vile crime of rape at Sde Teiman is not an isolated case but part of a pattern of dehumanisation and abuse. 

“Together with the extensive efforts to cover it up, persecution of the whistleblower and public appearances by the soldiers who [allegedly] committed the rape, it shows that Israel is not the liberal democracy that the British government and much of the media like to pretend it is. 

“Israel will never investigate and punish these crimes because they are state sanctioned. The British government must end all its support to this genocidal state.”

Since 7 October 2023, one Israeli soldier has been convicted for assaulting Palestinians in detention during the war. This is despite reports of widespread abuse and torture of Palestinian detainees in Israeli facilities throughout the past two years of Israel’s war on Gaza.

As part of the 10 October ceasefire deal, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, and the bodies of nearly 200 Palestinians, in exchange for Hamas returning all living hostages and the bodies of deceased hostages. Doctors, officials and family members report that the bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel show clear signs of torture and execution. Before the exchange, Israel was estimated to be holding nearly 10,000 Palestinians in its prisons, detention centres, interrogation centres and military courts – including children. More than 3,400 were administrative detainees and held without charge or trial.

No soldiers in Israel have been charged for killing civilians in Gaza. At least 68,000 Palestinians – including 20,000 children – have been killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023.