The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) arrested eight reservists on Monday as part of a probe into alleged torture of a Palestinian captive, prompting rioters, including several lawmakers, to break into a military base demanding their release. One argued that nothing was off-limits when it came to dealing with Hamas.
Ten soldiers were originally caught up in the investigation. Two were released early on Wednesday, while eight were ordered to remain in custody through Sunday. According to the IDF, they have been accused of aggravated sodomy, causing bodily harm, abuse, and conduct unbecoming of a soldier.
The arrest of the reservists on Monday interrupted a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee, as a MP of the ruling Likud party, Hanoch Milwidsky, tried to walk out in protest.
“To insert a stick in a person’s rectum, is that legitimate?” asked Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli-Arab lawmaker.
“Yes!” Milwidsky shouted back. “If he is a Nukhba, everything is legitimate to do! Everything!”
Nukhba is a special unit of the al-Qassam Brigades, the militant arm of Hamas. Israel vowed to destroy the Palestinian group after last year’s deadly October 7 attack.
While some lawmakers exchanged heated words, others joined nationalist groups that stormed the Sde Teiman military base and prison, near Beersheba, where the ten suspects were held. Sde Teiman has served as a camp for Palestinians taken prisoner in Gaza.
When the military police tried to relocate the suspects to Beit Lid, a base near Netanya, the rioters followed. “Hands off the reservists,” tweeted National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for calm and condemned the protesters who stormed the bases, however.
“Breaking into a military base and disturbing the order there is severe behavior that is not acceptable in any way,” said Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, head of the General Staff. “We are in the midst of a war and actions of this type endanger the security of the state.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that “the law applies to anyone — nobody may trespass into IDF bases or violate the laws of the state of Israel.”
The riots forced the IDF to redeploy three battalions “to guard the Beit Lid base not from an enemy but from angry Israeli citizens,” the Jerusalem Post noted in an editorial on Wednesday, noting that these forces had “much more pressing things to do in Gaza, in Judea and Samaria, and along the northern border against a real enemy.”
Israel has insisted that captive Palestinians are being treated in accordance with international law. UN agencies and human rights groups have raised alarms about reports of abuses, however. Allegations of severe abuse at Sde Teiman – including the anal rape of prisoners – first surfaced in a CNN report in May.