Officials of the criminal investigation division arrived at the Sde Teiman facility on Monday and detained for questioning several reserve soldiers on suspicion that they abused a terrorist detained at the facility.
The terrorist had been brought to the hospital wounded as a result of severe abuse. A police investigation was thus opened on the suspicion of abuse of the detainee.
As the investigators arrived, a riot began while an attempt was made to allow some of the suspected soldiers to flee.
The IDF is reportedly determined to exhaust the investigation against all the suspects.
The military said, "Following a suspicion of serious abuse of a detainee who was held in the detention facility in Sde Teiman, an investigation by the military police was opened by order of the military attorney's office."
The attorney general later said in response to the incident, "Just as the IDF must be given full operational freedom to fight, it is crucial to adhere to lawful conduct. I provide full support to the Military Advocate General and to the law enforcement authorities in the IDF and the Israel Police, who operate professionally and fairly to uphold the law. Law enforcement authorities have a duty to investigate suspicions of criminal offenses and to enforce the law according to the facts and applicable legal standards."
Politicians react to the incident
A number of Members of the Knesset from the coalition criticized the raid. Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) announced that he would convene an "urgent debate" on the "soldiers' arrests and the conduct of the Military Advocate General and the Military Police."
אירוע חריג בבסיס שדה תימן: חיילי צה"ל התעמתו עם כוח משטרה צבאית שהגיע לעכב לחקירה חיילים המעורבים בשמירה על מחבלי נוח'בה. מהומה התפתחה במקום, כמה חיילים נעצרו ואחרים נמלטו@ItayBlumental pic.twitter.com/eB1cbkxKa8
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) July 29, 2024
"I will not give a hand to the scenes as they were seen today at the Sde Teiman base," Edelstein said. A situation where masked military police officers conduct a raid on an IDF base is not acceptable to me, and I will not allow it to happen again. Our soldiers are not criminals, and this disgraceful persecution of our soldiers is unacceptable to me," Edelstein said.
Likud MK Hanoch Milvetsky left the Knesset Finance Committee in the middle of a voting session in protest of the raid, and the committee was forced to halt the session since the coalition no longer enjoyed a majority.
"The progressive legal absurdity that burns everything in the country must stop now! I call on all of my friends in the coalition to do as I did and stop the harassment of IDF soldiers," Milvetsky said.
The far-right party Otzma Yehudit announced soon after that its MKs were heading to Sde Teiman, as did Religious Zionist Party MK Tzvi Sukkot.