Reporter who published leaked Sde Teiman video hounded by right-wing activists in Tel Aviv

Channel 12 news said Thursday that a “red line” was crossed after right-wing activists, including one close to several ministers, accosted the network’s legal reporter, Guy Peleg, who last year published leaked footage purporting to show troops severely abusing a Palestinian inmate.

The leak is at the heart of the Sde Teiman scandal that has roiled Israel’s political and legal hierarchy in recent weeks.

“Channel 12 news condemns and is repulsed by the violence and intimidation sustained by legal reporter Guy Peleg in recent weeks, with a serious escalation in the past few days,” said the network, which last week confirmed it had hired a bodyguard for Peleg.

“The violence against Peleg, one of Israel’s premier journalists, has crossed a red line and is a flashing red light,” it said.

The statement came after nationalist religious group Torat Lehima on Thursday morning hung a banner displaying the slogan “Arrest Guy Peleg,” and a doctored image of him behind bars, from the Coca Cola bridge over central Israel’s bustling Route 4; and after Mordechai David and other right-wing activists reportedly assaulted Peleg following a lecture by the reporter in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday night.

According to Channel 12, the activists attacked Peleg, threatened him and blocked his car as he tried to get away. Several police officers arrived on the scene to escort Peleg, the network said.

In footage published on social media — some by David himself — the activist could be seen standing in front of Peleg’s car, and another activist leaning against the hood of the vehicle, as the reporter sat in the driver’s seat. Earlier footage also showed David yelling at Peleg as police officers escorted the reporter down the hall from the auditorium where he had just spoken.

הליווי שוטרים לרכב לא עזר לגיא פלג דפקתי ספרינט לרמזור ושם חסמתי אותו לזכרו של רבין ולמען החללים(לתרומה לפעילות לינק בפרופיל) pic.twitter.com/fYx2Zv27Mq

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— מרדכי דוד (@DwdHy30621) November 13, 2025

“Why did you publish footage of IDF soldiers?” David says in the footage, as Peleg remains mum. “Guy Peleg, you’ll need a police escort wherever you go in the world.”

“It won’t help you, you’ll be blocked!” David continues in the footage, filming himself on his phone. He yells “coward” as Peleg and his security detail enter an elevator.

ההטרדות והאיומים על גיא פלג בדמוקרטיה המתפרקת ששמה ישראל נמשכים. הערב, אחרי הרצאה במרכז ת״א, הגיעו מרדכי דוד ושני בריונים נוספים להטריד את פלג. למקום הוזעקו יס״מניקים שליוו אותו למכונית. כשיצא מהחניון לכביש, הבריונים צצו שוב וחסמו את דרכו לזמן ממושך. המסר: ״תצטרך שוטרים כל החיים״ pic.twitter.com/EOAgAYHLZB

— David (Mizrahy) Verthaim (@dverthaim) November 12, 2025

Peleg, who is a frequent critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in his daytime program on the Tel Aviv-area 103FM radio station on Thursday that he filed a complaint to the police against David, who frequently harasses anti-government protesters and has garnered praise from coalition members including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Social Equality Minister May Golan.

David, said Peleg, “is a criminal, fringe, negligible person. The problem is that he’s not alone. Anyone who goes online can see that the two-bit crook is embraced by ministers and senior coalition members. He’s their arm. He’s their representative. He’s their real face.”

השר יריב לוין על החסימות בקפלן pic.twitter.com/kZWY6YZ4Xa

— מרדכי דוד (@DwdHy30621) September 29, 2025

“He’s sent to intimidate, to harass journalists who are doing their job,” added Peleg of David, who last week was dealt a restraining order from anti-Netanyahu independent journalist Or-ly Barlev after David harassed her during a hearing in the premier’s corruption trial.

Peleg also said he learned the identity of one of the spectators at an Israeli Premier League soccer match last Saturday who waved a banner reading, “Guy Peleg, you’re unwanted in the bleachers — [we] protect our heroic troops.”

מהנעשה באצטדיון במשחק של מכבי חיפה לאוהד גיא פלג pic.twitter.com/ZVV0UTXrNi

— David (Mizrahy) Verthaim (@dverthaim) November 8, 2025

According to Peleg, the man was Tzahi Eliyahu, who was placed at number eight on Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit electoral list in the most recent Knesset elections, in 2022, and at number 17 in Otzma Yehudit’s joint slate with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party. Eliyahu’s placement makes him next in line to enter the Knesset should one of the slate’s incumbent lawmakers resign.

Speaking on 103FM, Peleg noted that Eliyahu sports on his arm a tattoo of the Jewish extremist group Kach, which was led by slain rabbi and Knesset member Meir Kahane and was outlawed in 1994.

צחי אליהו, המועמד הבא ברשימת עוצמה יהודית, היה אמור להפוך בחודש האחרון לח"כ בעקבות התפטרות אבי מעוז מתפקידו ופינוי התקן לח"כ אלמוג כהן. גורמים המעורים בעוצמה יהודית טוענים כי בין גביר חושש שאליהו 'יפגע בתדמית המפלגה', בין השאר בגלל קעקוע ענק של תנועת כך שעל זרועו. @SrugimNews pic.twitter.com/Vg0f3LzkwX

— יעל שׂרה רפּ-פרץ (@yaelrapp14) March 31, 2023

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Kahanists are here,” said Peleg, referring to followers of the rabbi, whose former students include Ben Gvir himself. “They’re no longer fringe. Kahanism has become legitimate. The one who opened the door to the Kahanists is our prime minister.”

The comments came a day after Likud lawmaker Nissim Vaturi said Kahane was “right about many things” and that the Likud was wrong to have shunned the openly racist rabbi decades ago.

The Times of Israel could not independently confirm that Eliyahu was one of the people photographed hoisting the banner at the match between Maccabi Haifa and Bnei Sakhnin at the latter team’s home field in the northern Arab town of Sakhnin. Eliyahu, who re-posted the photograph on Instagram Sunday after it made the rounds of right-wing groups on social media, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

אוהדי מכבי חיפה
במסר לגיא פלג
דובר המועדון לשעבר: pic.twitter.com/LcarT723TI

— avishai matia (@avishai_matia) November 8, 2025

Former Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi admitted late last month that she leaked to Peleg surveillance footage purporting to show IDF soldiers severely abusing a Palestinian inmate at the Sde Teiman detention facility in southern Israel.

Tomer-Yerushalmi, who resigned after the admission, said she leaked the footage in a bid to counter right-wing criticism of the July 2024 arrest of the alleged abusers at Sde Teiman, which was stormed by a right-wing mob hours after the arrest took place.

Members of Netanyahu’s coalition have cast the leak as a blood libel against the troops, five of whom were indicted in February.

The Sde Teiman leak investigation has emerged as the latest front in the government’s broadside against the judiciary, after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, whom the government seeks to oust, ordered the probe reopened in October due to new information.

Levin has since appointed his own investigator to take charge of the probe and demanded that Baharav-Miara recuse herself due to her role in an initial probe that advised the case be closed. She has sought to transfer authority over the probe to the State Attorney’s Office, while Levin has insisted on his own hand-picked investigator, State Ombudsman for Judges Asher Kula.

The High Court is expected to rule on Sunday on who has authority over probe.