In blow to Levin, High Court rules state attorney can handle Sde Teiman leak probe

The High Court of Justice on Wednesday rejected efforts to disqualify state prosecutors from being involved in the investigation of a leak of a highly controversial video from the Sde Teiman military prison showing the alleged abuse of a Palestinian detainee in 2024.

The 2-1 ruling said State Attorney Amit Aisman can investigate the leak of the video, rejecting Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s attempts to keep the case out of the hands of state prosecutors amid his ongoing conflict with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who supervises the State Attorney’s Office.

Despite a police finding that Baharav-Miara was uninvolved in the affair, Levin has accused the attorney general of having a conflict of interest in the case. The justice minister made that claim because her office oversaw an internal probe into the leak that recommended not opening a criminal investigation into the matter.

That source was later revealed as ex-military advocate general Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who admitted to the leak, which was meant as a bid to lend credence to the investigation of the alleged abuse.

Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Itai Ofir in March ordered the cancellation of charges in the affair against five IDF reserve soldiers. He listed several factors, including “complexity regarding the existing evidence,” and the release of the detainee himself back to Gaza in the October 2025 ceasefire, before he testified on the matter.

According to the indictment filed last year, the five soldiers allegedly severely beat and assaulted the prisoner after he was brought to the detention facility, leaving him with grave injuries, including broken ribs and an internal tear in his rectum. The case made headlines around the world.

Before charges were filed, the very existence of the investigation into the soldiers sparked outrage among far-right activists and politicians, who in 2024 broke into the detention facility and another army base in an attempt to thwart the arrests of the soldiers.

Levin demanded that he be allowed to select someone from outside the state prosecution to oversee the investigation into the leak, something the justices allowed at the time. But they later rejected both of his nominees, since neither met the guidelines set out in their ruling.

Aisman is expected to order the filing of indictments against Tomer-Yerushalmi, as well as against the other senior military prosecutors suspected of leaking the video, then covering up the leak.

After completing their investigation, police passed a summary of their findings to the Justice Ministry and requested that Baharav-Miara be allowed to supervise the case, saying they had ruled her out as a suspect in the affair.

Baharav-Miara has come into a series of confrontations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, which has sought to oust her from her post.

The government has accused the attorney general of serially thwarting its attempts to enact policy, appointments and legislation, and asserts that it can no longer work effectively with her, while Baharav-Miara has argued she has simply been demarcating what the government can and cannot do under the law.