On Monday, March 16, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz met with a group of Israeli soldiers and apologized to them for the “wrong that the system has done” to them, and instructed the IDF to return them to immediate service.
The soldiers in question, were the soldiers who gang-raped a Palestinian prisoner in Gaza. Just a week prior to Katz’s meeting with them, the soldiers had been cleared of charges after the case against them was closed by the newly appointed Israeli Chief Military Advocate (CMA), Maj. General Itay Ofir.
“Justice has been done and all this dark cloud has been removed from you and your family members… I commend the decision of the new CMA, who in opposition to his predecessor, leads a policy of protecting the soldiers and not the terrorists”, Katz said on Monday. “I have instructed the security apparatus and the IDF to act so that you may return to service – as is fit and as you want, to contribute and be part of the great victory”.
Katz was just the latest Israeli politician to celebrate the accused rapists. Following the closing of the case last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a congratulatory statement:
“The blood-libel against the fighters of Force 100, known as the ‘Sde Teiman affair’, which defamed Israel worldwide on an unprecedented scale, has come to an end.
It is inconceivable that it took such a long time to drop the case, which was conducted in a criminal manner against IDF fighters confronting the worst of our enemies.
The State of Israel must hunt down its enemies – not its heroic fighters.”
The gang rape was a scandal in Israel, because in August 2024, a video was leaked, showing the gang-rape from the CCTV camera at the most notorious torture camp, Sde Teiman – which is part of a whole network of torture camps, as documented by the Israeli B’tselem, in their report ‘Welcome to hell’, also from 2024. Gang-rape, including by the usage of dogs, is part of the systemic torture that these Palestinian hostages are forced to endure. The case related to the footage also included forensic evidence of severe beating – breaking of a rib, puncturing of a lung – in addition to tearing of the rectum by the sharp object inserted into the prisoner’s anus.
But the scandal that engulfed Israel was not because the public was incensed by this brutal and heinous crime. No, it was the fact that someone tried to bring the crime to light.
It turned out that the video footage was leaked at the time by the former Chief Military Advocate, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi. She was arrested, and ultimately opted to resign in November. That resignation was a gift for the Israeli political establishment, with Defense Minister Israel Katz fast-tracking Itay Ofir to the vacant position. Ofir (no family relation to this writer, BTW), delivered. The case is now closed.
Ofir is a former combat soldier in the Givati Brigade and a reservist in the Negev Brigade, besides his legal training. “IDF soldiers must have the trust of the public, and therefore the Military Advocate General’s Office must have the public’s trust,” Katz said at the Ofir’s inauguration ceremony. “We will confront this crisis by correcting the serious mistakes, learning the lessons and applying them. Only then can we restore the trust the IDF needs more than anything else… I am confident you will turn this major crisis into an opportunity to rebuild and reorganize the Military Advocate General’s Office.”
Israel’s justification for closing the case
It is clear that the “investigation” of this crime was a farce to begin with, especially given how the establishment has celebrated these rapists for the duration of the case. But nevertheless, it is worth examining the legal reasons that Ofir conjured up to justify his decision.
Ofir’s reasoning highlights what he considers a lacking evidentiary basis, and what he considers “procedural problems” related to the handling of the case – particularly that it was leaked and discussed in the media.
On the evidentiary basis aspect, he lays weight on the fact that the Palestinian detainee who was brutalized is now back in Gaza:
“In October, the security-detainee was released to the Gaza strip within the plan for the release of the kidnapped (sic) [Israelis]. This new circumstance significantly changes the evidentiary basis and makes proof of significant parts of the indictment difficult”.
So the detainee is now in Gaza. Ofir is claiming that Israel, which controls Gaza down to birth certificates and can call Palestinians’ cellphones to tell them their house is about to be bombed, cannot get in contact with him. And although the medical records have long been part of the case, it is now “difficult” to prove his claims, as it were. Ofir admits that “on the one hand, the evidentiary material in the case has presented a grave and concerning picture concerning the defendants”, alas, the “evidentiary picture has been complex”.
Ofir also claims that the video “does not represent an indisputable picture of the charges attributed to the defendants”. The fact that this evidence is supplemented by the testimony of the victim, in addition to the medical records, does not seem to help.
On the video-leak issue, Ofir notes that “these events” once again “significantly hurt their right to a fair procedure and the sense of justice and fairness which are required to stand at the core of any criminal procedure”.
This is an obviously desperate attempt to shield the soldiers from justice. Ironically, the phrase “protection from justice” has been repeatedly applied in the decision, in the sense of protecting the defendants from the justice system. It’s exactly the thinking that is present in Katz’s message – the IDF soldiers need to be defended and protected, otherwise it’s playing on the side of the terrorists.
What of a society that celebrates rapists?
But this is not merely a legal matter, it is a societal one. In order to understand where Israeli society is right now, it is once again relevant to compare the case with the murder case of Elor Azarya in 2016 — where the medic-soldier shot and executed an already incapacitated Palestinian suspect in the head at point-blank range. Like the Sde Teiman rape, Azarya’s blatant crime was also caught on video. Although what he did happened “tons of times,” according to his comrades, he was to serve as the “bad apple,” which in turn would prove the innocence of the system. Azarya’s trial was a sham, and he eventually returned home to a hero’s welcome after a nine-month prison term.
In August 2024, as the news of the Sde Teiman case engulfed Israel, I was still in the belief that something symbolic like what occurred in the Azarya case, would be the outcome in this case – a symbolic slap on the wrist, for the sake of international PR. This was clearly the intention of the former CMA Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi. The reason she got the video leaked was that she felt the case would be closed without it. So she sought to ensure that some semblance of justice would be achieved, in such a clear case. But it eventually turned against her, and now the celebration is that her plot was foiled. The rapists, who have already been celebrated in parts of the media as stars, will now receive even greater support for their supposedly unjust ordeal.
Israeli society is apparently less interested in international PR than before, despite its massive hasbara efforts abroad. The genocidal vein is so strong, that it overrides the concern to even appear civilised.
Netanyahu opines that it is the case itself that has defamed Israel. But no – Israel defames itself, it cannot help it. Otherwise put – the closing of this case and the comments that celebrate it is Israel’s true face.
This sends a strong message to all the Israeli torturers: rape is legal.
In the wake of the Azarya case, Israelis created a popular term called the “Azarya effect”, suggesting that the prosecution of Azarya created an unfortunate deterrent which caused soldiers to hesitate in shooting Palestinians.
The Sde Teiman case, in turn, has another effect. Its closing signals that rape is legal, permitted and perhaps even welcome – against those “cruel monsters”, as Defense minister Katz says. Katz’s predecessor, Yoav Galant, called them “human animals”. Anyone who would get any good ideas about prosecuting those who rape the cruel and monstrous human animals, will suffer consequences themselves.
The dehumanization of Israeli society itself reaches yet another nadir, and it is still a most dangerous time for Palestinians. Imagine it – those rapists could just return to Sde Teiman, or any other prison in the system of torture dungeons, and say “welcome to hell”.
