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.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A UPS cargo plane crashed Tuesday at an airport in Louisville, Kentucky, where the company operates its largest package delivery hub.

UPS calls the giant center Worldport.

Here’s what to know about its enormous scale:

Processes 2 million packages per day

The facility at Muhammad Ali International Airport sprawls across an area the size of 90 football fields.

It processes 2 million packages per day, but has the ability to handle even more. It has the capacity to process 416,000 packages and documents per hour if needed.

The Louisville airport ranks third among U.S. airports for cargo as measured by weight, after Memphis, Tennessee, and Anchorage, Alaska, according to Airports Council International World.

A UPS town

Some 20,000 people work at the center, making UPS the largest employer in the Louisville area, the company said on its website.

Louisville Metro Council member Betsy Ruhe said everyone in town knows someone who works at UPS.

“My heart goes out to everybody at UPS because this is a UPS town,” Ruhe said. “My cousin’s a UPS pilot. My aide’s tennis partner is a UPS pilot. The intern in my office works overnight at UPS to pay for college.”

Hundreds of flights per day

More than 300 flights take off and land from the facility each day..

A time-lapse video UPS posted on YouTube shows planes taxiing to and from special cargo gates. Workers unload containers packed with cardboard boxes. Other employees load the boxes onto a conveyor belt, which delivers packages to workers who load them into other containers.

The center has room for 125 aircraft to park.

Louisville’s location in Kentucky puts it within four hours of flight time to 95% of the U.S. population. It serves 200 countries around the world.

UPS flies six different types of planes in the U.S.

It has 27 MD-11s, which is the model that crashed on Tuesday. It also flies the Airbus A300-600 and four different types of Boeing jets: the 757-200, 767-300, 747-400 and 747-8.

Expansions in Louisville

UPS made Louisville an air cargo hub starting in the 1980s. It opened the package sorting center it calls Worldport in 2002. The public media outlet Marketplace reported UPS picked the city because it doesn’t get a lot of extreme heat or snow and because it’s centrally located.

The hub has steadily grown over the decades. Last year, UPS opened a new $220 million aircraft hangar in Louisville large enough to park two 747 planes side by side. The investment tripled the company’s maintenance footprint for the plane at the airport.

In 2022 it announced plans to add eight new flight simulators.

UPS Healthcare, which provides shipments for clinical trials, shipments to medical care patients and other services, was due to get two new buildings in the expansion.

UPS gets permission to fly its own planes in 1988

UPS got its start in Seattle in 1907, when two teenagers started American Messenger Co. The name United Parcel Service debuted in 1919.

The company won Federal Aviation Administration approval to operate its own aircraft in 1988.

Headquartered in Atlanta, UPS today employs about 490,000 people worldwide.

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This story has been corrected to show that the facility is equivalent in size to 90 football fields, not 10.

U.S. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth on Tuesday lauded South Korea’s plans to boost its military spending and take on a larger role in defending itself from North Korea’s aggression.

The U.S. has wanted South Korea to increase its conventional defense capabilities so that Washington can center its attention on China.

Hegseth spoke to reporters after annual security talks with South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back in Seoul, where he said he was “greatly encouraged” by Seoul’s commitment to raising defense spending and making greater investments in its own military capabilities.

He said the two allies agreed that the investments would boost South Korea’s ability to lead its conventional deterrence against its northern foe.

US, CHINA AGREE TO OPEN DIRECT MILITARY HOTLINE AFTER XI-TRUMP SUMMIT

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, in a speech to parliament Tuesday, asked lawmakers to approve an 8.2% increase in defense spending next year. The president said the increase in spending would help modernize the military’s weapons systems and reduce its reliance on the U.S.

Hegseth noted defense cooperation on repairing and maintaining U.S. warships in South Korea, stressing that the activities harness South Korea’s shipbuilding capabilities and “ensure our most lethal capabilities remain ready to respond to any crisis.”

“We face, as we both acknowledge, a dangerous security environment, but our alliance is stronger than ever,” Hegseth said.

TRUMP ARRIVES IN SOUTH KOREA FOR KEY TALKS AHEAD OF APEC SUMMIT, XI MEETING — NO KIM JONG UN REUINION

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, second from left, and South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back, center, visit the Observation Post Ouellette near the border village of Panmunjom, South Korea, Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (AP)

Hegseth said the South Korea-U.S. alliance is primarily meant to respond to potential North Korean aggression, but other regional threats must also be addressed.

“There’s no doubt flexibility for regional contingencies is something we would take a look at, but we are focused on standing by our allies here and ensuring the threat of the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] is not a threat to the Republic of Korea and certainly continue to extend nuclear deterrence as we have before,” he said.

In recent years, the U.S. and South Korea have discussed how to integrate U.S. nuclear weapons and South Korean conventional weapons.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, left, shakes hands with South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back for a photo at the 57th Security Consultative Meeting at the Defense Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP)

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South Korea has no nuclear weapons, and Ahn denied speculation that it could eventually seek its own nuclear weapons program or that it is pushing for redeployment of U.S. tactical weapon weapons that were removed from South Korea in the 1990s.

Earlier Tuesday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the country detected North Korea test-firing around 10 rounds of artillery toward its western waters on Monday, shortly before Hegseth arrived at an inter-Korean border village with Ahn to begin his two-day visit to South Korea.

Hegseth visited the Demilitarized Zone on the border with North Korea earlier in the week.