The revelation last week by Israel’s top military lawyer, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, that she leaked the footage of a gang rape of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military detention centre in 2024 has shaken the country’s political and media establishment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – whose leadership of the genocidal war on Gaza has drawn global condemnation – called the leak “perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced”. Critics of Netanyahu’s view come from establishment voices desperate to defend the judiciary and state institutions, which they believe Netanyahu and his allies are exploiting the leak to undermine.

Lost amid headlines fuelled by the leak’s admission is the gang rape of the Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman on July 5, 2024. The attack was so brutal that the man was admitted to hospital with what the Israeli daily Haaretz revealed was a ruptured bowel, severe anal and lung injuries, and broken ribs – injuries that later required surgery.

“It’s a huge story in Israel, but you won’t see the word ‘rape’ anywhere in it,” Orly Noy, editor of the Hebrew language Local Call, told Al Jazeera. “The contextualisation of the story is entirely different here than anything you or I might see.”

Instead of focusing on the rape and the ongoing legal proceedings against the five suspects, the story has instead centred on Tomer-Yerushalmi and those accused of helping her cover up the leak.

Speaking on Israeli television on Saturday night, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, Energy Minister Eli Cohen, told viewers that Tomer-Yerushalmi was “supposed to be the bulletproof vest, the protector, of the [Israeli military] soldiers”.

“Instead of that, she stabbed them in the back,” he said about the lawyer who leaked footage of soldiers appearing to rape a prisoner. “In this case, we are talking about treason.”

Defence Minister Israel Katz was no less damning, releasing at least seven statements targeting the military attorney in a week and accusing her of participating in “blood libel” against the five alleged rapists.

The politicisation of rape

Focusing on Tomer-Yerushalmi, rather than the alleged rapists, is nothing new.

The former chief military advocate had been the subject of political pressure and accusations of covering up the source of the leak since the first reports of the rape emerged in August 2024. That pressure continued to build, culminating in the announcement from Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in early October of an investigation into the source of the leak.

On Friday, November 1, Tomer-Yerushalmi resigned and admitted that she had been the source of the leak. Two days later, she was reported missing for several hours following the discovery of what friends and family worried was a suicide note, which prompted a large-scale search.

Within hours of being found safe, Tomer-Yerushalmi was arrested, and the suicide note was dismissed by Israeli prosecutors as a ploy. She has been charged with multiple offences, including fraud, breach of trust, obstruction of justice, and abuse of office.

Since Sunday, police have also arrested the military’s former chief prosecutor, Colonel Matan Solomosh, on suspicion of helping Tomer-Yerushalmi cover up the leak. There have also been suggestions that the attorney general and her staff may have been involved.

“Rape doesn’t matter,” said political analyst Ori Goldberg, referring to how Israeli authorities are responding to news of the leak. “What matters is the woman who leaked the tape and what they want to call the deep state.”

“For Netanyahu and others, this is evidence that the deep state has gotten too big for its britches and that, by accusing Tomer-Yerushalmi of collaborating with the attorney general, they have evidence of the treachery and a further means of undermining any civilian oversight there may be over their workings.”

The ‘deep state’

Netanyahu and his allies’ fight with the judiciary dates back to what his critics call the “judicial coup” of 2023, when he proposed a sweeping legislative overhaul of Israel’s judicial system. He has also faced multiple charges of corruption since 2019.

The prime minister’s proposed judicial reforms would grant his right-wing coalition the freedom to act without the check of the Supreme Court, potentially leading to a further crackdown on dissent and the rights of Palestinians.

Attorney General Baharav-Miara has found herself in the firing line for resisting those reforms. In 2023, she issued legal guidance opposing the proposed judicial overhaul, writing that it would undermine Israel’s checks and balances, and that it was “a sure recipe for harming human rights and clean governance”. She also told the prime minister to distance himself from the judicial reforms, noting that it would be a conflict of interest amid his own corruption trial.

“They want to cover up the rape,” Aida Touma-Suleiman, a member of the Israeli parliament representing the left-wing Hadash-Ta’al faction, told Al Jazeera. “That’s why they’re dealing with the prosecutors and not the crime itself.”

“Benjamin Netanyahu is using this, just like the right wing is using this. They’ve been repeating the same messaging ever since the story broke. This is how the judiciary works. These are your so-called checks and balances. Look at them, they’re criminals.”

Justice lost

Amid the political furore, the likelihood of prosecuting the alleged rapists appears to be diminishing.

On Monday, it emerged that the rape victim had been returned to Gaza in October as part of the exchange of captives, leading to speculation that he might not appear in proceedings against his alleged attackers.

Five of those indicted for the assault saw their charges downgraded to “severely abusing” the detainee on Sunday, when they appeared outside Israel’s Supreme Court wearing balaclavas to hide their identity.

A lawyer for the suspects, Moshe Polsky, told journalists that his clients could not expect a fair trial due to the leak, saying “the wheel cannot be turned back” and that, consequently, the indictment process had been tainted.

One suspect, who declined to be identified, described himself and his fellow suspects as loyal patriots wrongfully targeted by a legal system they see as undermining their service. “We knew we had to defend the country [following the October 7 attack],” he said.

“Since that day, dozens of fighters are still fighting for justice not on the battlefield, but in courtrooms.”

For observers such as journalist Noy, however, there is little to do with justice in the saga of accusation, counter-accusation and cover-up that has come to overshadow the brutal rape of a prisoner in Israeli custody.

“For the two sides, this is all about the system and nothing to do with the Palestinian victim,” she reflected.

“One side sees it as [about] the old elite protecting itself, and the other about safeguarding the institutions of the state,” Noy said. “But don’t forget, these are the same institutions they need to protect to continue the abuse of Palestinians. These are the defences they offer up whenever they’re criticised from overseas.”