JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said Thursday it would drop charges against five soldiers accused of beating and sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee, an attack it said was partly caught on camera.
The decision, which comes at a time when much of Israel’s attention is focused on its war with Iran, ends a hot-button case that has deeply divided Israel since the soldiers were arrested at the notorious Steteyman military prison in 2024, sparking the fury of far-right government members and hardline ultranationalists who violently occupied the prison in protest.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the announcement, while rights groups accused the military of ignoring one of the worst abuses in the country’s wartime prison network.
“The Israeli Military Advocate General has just issued rape licenses to soldiers – as long as the victim is Palestinian,” Sari Bashi, executive director of Israel’s Public Committee Against Torture, said after the case was dismissed. She said the decision was “the latest in a series of actions aimed at whitewashing the abuse of detainees, which has worsened in frequency and severity since October 7, 2023.”
Netanyahu welcomed the decision, saying “the State of Israel must pursue its enemies, not its heroic fighters.”
The now-dismissed indictment against the soldiers accused them of carrying out attacks that included dragging a Palestinian prisoner on the floor, stomping on him, electrocuting him, and stabbing him in the rectum and sexually assaulting him. The Palestinian was taken to an Israeli hospital with broken ribs and a perforated rectum, requiring surgery before being returned to prison.
Allegations of abuse at the facility were further confirmed in August 2024 when Israeli news channels aired a leaked video of the alleged attack.
Video showed a group of masked soldiers grabbing a detainee from the ground where he and other Palestinians were lying face down and handcuffing him in a fence before taking the detainee to a fenced-off area they cordoned off with shields.
In a decision to dismiss the case on Thursday, the military’s top legal official said charges against the soldiers would be dropped because the video did not show enough abuse to warrant a criminal conviction and had been improperly leaked to the media. The decision added that the Palestinian victim has since been released back to Gaza, leaving “a lack of certainty” about his ability to testify at the trial.
In November 2025, after much speculation about how the leaked video was leaked, the military’s top legal official, Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, acknowledged that she had approved its release, saying she wanted to show the seriousness of the abuse and create confidence that the military had a duty to investigate.
She suddenly resigned in the face of outcry from Netanyahu’s government and then disappeared, only to be found on a beach in Tel Aviv without her phone after a frantic search by authorities. The phone, which was thought to potentially contain evidence against her, was later found at sea.
The Associated Press investigated allegations of inhumane treatment and abuse by Stettman before the surveillance video was released.
The prison was established after October 7, 2023, to house Palestinians in Gaza during Israel’s war against the Hamas armed group. The secretive facility quickly gained notoriety as employees and Palestinians released from detention described scenes of abuse and torture, and Israeli rights groups petitioned the country’s Supreme Court to close the facility.
Israel has long been accused of failing to hold its soldiers accountable for crimes committed against Palestinians. The accusations intensified during the Gaza war. Israel says its forces act in accordance with military and international law and says it will thoroughly investigate any alleged violations.
