IDF military police investigates abuse claims amid controversial arrests of reservists

Israeli military police prosecutors contacted Palestinians in Gaza who had been released from the Sde Teiman prison facility to inquire about possible abuse by IDF soldiers, Chief Military Prosecutor Col. Matan Solomash said in a classified meeting in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (FADC) on Tuesday morning, according to a source.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in an interview on Channel 14 on Monday evening that he had received complaints about the issue from people within the military police's investigation unit, and, according to the source, Solomash confirmed this during the committee meeting.

Committee chairman MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) convened the meeting, which he called "urgent," after military police arrested nine reservists on Monday for suspected sodomy of an imprisoned Hamas terrorist. Some of the military police officers who conducted the arrests were masked.

The arrests themselves and the fact that the officers were masked drew condemnation from several ministers and Members of Knesset, including Edelstein himself.

According to the source, MKs also asked Solomash whether or not the military prosecution had taken into account broader considerations such as international consequences or social repercussions that could emerge from the arrests themselves and the way in which they were carried out. Solomash said that he had not and that the decision to mask some of the officers stemmed from fear that they would be recognized and targeted by elements who opposed the arrests.

According to the source, Solomash could not say whether his superior, Military Advocate General Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi had made such considerations.

Protests erupt over controversial IDF arrests

Edelstein criticized Tomer-Yerushalmi for opting to send Solomash to the meeting instead of attending it herself, and said that he would demand that she attend an additional meeting in order to provide "appropriate answers" to the IDF's "investigation policy."

The arrests led to unrest on Monday. Dozens of protestors against the arrests, accompanied by at least one minister and two Members of Knesset from the coalition, succeeded on Monday afternoon in breaking into the Sde Teiman base near Beersheba, where the arrests had been conducted. Dozens of protestors later on Monday evening also succeeded in breaching security and entering the Beit Lid base, where the arrested reservists were being held.

Suspected Hamas terrorists have been held at a compound within the Sde Teiman base since the October 7 massacre. Their status is "illegal combatants," and they are not given a right of attorney. They are eventually either returned to Gaza or moved to an Israel Prison Service prison facility. The compound has been guarded by military police and IDF reservists.

A civil organization appealed to the High Court of Justice over the conditions at Sde Teiman, and the IDF and Shin Bet were forced to release some prisoners due to lack of space in Israeli jails.

Elements on the right and far-right have demanded the death penalty for those interred at Sde Teiman, and have opposed judicial oversight of the conditions at the site. On the other hand, human rights organizations reported that some of those interred at the site had been tortured.