From the Liveblog of
Saturday, January 4, 2025
Minister: Cooked up video of Palestinian prisoner’s abuse prolonging hostages’ suffering
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Following Hamas’s release of a video featuring hostage IDF servicewomen Liri Albag, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu claims that the hostages are suffering due to the leak of a video this summer allegedly showing soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee.
“The price of ‘cooking up’ the blood libel videos in the Sde Teiman affair is being paid dearly by those held hostage in Hamas tunnels,” Eliyahu tweets, arguing that “every day that the IDF’s legitimacy is undermined = another day [for hostages] in the Hamas tunnels.”
“Whoever is behind this blood libel must be brought to justice,” he states — using a term referring to baseless allegations of ritual murder by Jews in medieval Europe as the pretext for antisemitic violence.
Coalition lawmakers have condemned the leak of footage broadcast by Channel 12 in August, which purported to show IDF servicemen sexually abusing a Palestinian security prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention facility. On July 29, an ultranationalist mob broke into the two military bases to interrupt legal proceedings against the reservist soldiers suspected of the abuse.
During a hearing at the High Court last week, an attorney for one of the suspects in the abuse case claimed that the video had been edited from footage from two separate days, one of which the victim was not even present for, according to the Ynet news site.
The Times of Israel Community.