Three coalition members summoned for questioning over July riot at IDF holding facility
Nissim Vaturi says he won’t show up for interrogation; he, Zvi Sukkot and Amichay Eliyahu joined mob that stormed Sde Teiman to protest arrest of troops suspected of inmate abuse
Coalition members Nissim Vaturi, Amichay Eliyahu and Zvi Sukkot have been summoned for police interrogation over their part in a mob that stormed the Sde Teiman detention center in southern Israel in July 2024, following the arrest of IDF reservists accused of severe abuse of a Palestinian inmate.
The summonses came six weeks after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Prosecutor Amit Aisman authorized a police probe of the politicians for taking part in the riot, which was followed by a similar break-in at the Beit Lid military courthouse in central Israel the same day.
The Sde Teiman riot began after masked military police officers arrested 10 soldiers at the base for allegedly sodomizing a detainee, causing him severe injuries including broken ribs and a rectal tear. In February, five of the reservists were indicted.
Months after the riots, it was reported that police had identified some 20 suspects from the mobs that stormed Sde Teiman and Beit Lid, but that none had been brought in for questioning.
When news of the criminal probe broke in March, Vaturi and Eliyahu said they would not show up for questioning, citing parliamentary immunity.
Sukkot had lost his Knesset seat in January after his party bolted the government over the Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal, but has since returned. On Sunday he did not immediately say he would refuse questioning, but accused Baharav-Miara of seeking to muzzle him.
In a video filmed outside Sde Teiman, he said: “I want to tell the AG and her friends in the public prosecutor’s office, you won’t scare us, you won’t intimidate us in your efforts to terrorize elected officials” as they seek to “protect IDF soldiers.”
Sukkot called the sexual abuse investigation against the soldiers baseless, adding that “the only ones who should be investigated” were the military prosecution, whom he accused of leaking a “cooked-up” video that purported to show the abuse at Sde Teiman, “causing us damage in the entire world.”
Vaturi, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, told police on Sunday that he would not show up for questioning, Hebrew media reported. Speaking to right-wing radio station Galey Israel, Vaturi said the probe was a “clown act” by Baharav-Miara, and called on the government to fire her. He also released a statement accusing her of refraining from prosecuting alleged crimes by opposition figures.
Eliyahu, who serves as heritage minister and is a member of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, did not immediately comment.
Ben Gvir himself took to X to denounce “the criminal activity of an attorney general who is partisan from head to toe.”
“I, as a minister, am prevented from intervening in independent investigations, and it’s important that it be that way, but the political attorney general, as head of the general prosecution, is initiating political and selective investigations,” said Ben Gvir. He also demanded a prosecution of “the staged clip from Sde Teiman.”
The Times of Israel Community.