The High Court of Justice on Wednesday rejected efforts to disqualify state prosecutors from being involved in the investigation of a leak of a highly controversial video from the Sde Teiman military prison showing the alleged abuse of a Palestinian detainee in 2024.

The 2-1 ruling said State Attorney Amit Aisman can investigate the leak of the video, rejecting Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s attempts to keep the case out of the hands of state prosecutors amid his ongoing conflict with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who supervises the State Attorney’s Office.

Despite a police finding that Baharav-Miara was uninvolved in the affair, Levin has accused the attorney general of having a conflict of interest in the case. The justice minister made that claim because her office oversaw an internal probe into the leak that recommended not opening a criminal investigation into the matter.

That source was later revealed as ex-military advocate general Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who admitted to the leak, which was meant as a bid to lend credence to the investigation of the alleged abuse.

Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Itai Ofir in March ordered the cancellation of charges in the affair against five IDF reserve soldiers. He listed several factors, including “complexity regarding the existing evidence,” and the release of the detainee himself back to Gaza in........

© The Times of Israel