Lawmakers who broke into IDF base during far-right riot to be investigated by police

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Prosecutor Amit Aisman have authorized a police investigation into two members of the government and one former lawmaker for breaking into the IDF’s Sde Teiman base in southern Israel last July, Hebrew media reported on Wednesday.

According to media outlets, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu of Otzma Yehudit, MK Nissim Vaturi of Likud, and former MK Zvi Sukkot of Religious Zionism will be questioned under caution about their role in the riot and subsequent break-in at the base.

The lawmakers were among dozens of far-right activists who rioted outside the base on July 29, 2024, after ten IDF soldiers were detained by Military Police investigators amid allegations of severe abuse against a Palestinian terror detainee.

Five of the IDF reservists were indicted in February for severely beating and assaulting the prisoner after he was brought to the detention facility on July 5, 2024, leaving him with severe injuries, including broken ribs and an internal tear in his rectum.

In response to the investigation against them, Eliyahu and Vaturi both vowed not to show up for questioning and railed against the attorney general — who the government has accused of obstructing its work and decided to fire this week.

In a post on X, Eliyahu said he would “not submit to a political investigation.”

“In a state government by the rule of law, a Knesset member has a duty to act where crime is suspected,” he asserted, claiming that his actions at the IDF detention facility were justified under the scope of his job and thus protected under parliamentary immunity law.

“This is the purpose of the immunity law: Not to protect members of the Knesset, but to protect public representatives and the public itself from the abuse of governmental power,” he argued.

Addressing Baharav-Miara, who Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is seeking to fire, Eliyahu warned that “the era in which you used the authority granted to you to trample on the law is over.”

In his post, Vaturi claimed the investigation was instigated by the “deep state prosecution” and the “attorney general of Kaplan Force,” referring to an anti-government protest group, while charging that the probe was an attempt “to take revenge against right-wing Knesset members.”

He said that prosecutors should investigate opposition MKs and activists before turning to him.

Sukkot, who was recently forced out of the Knesset under the Norwegian Law, listed incidents that were not investigated, complaining, “They only invite us for questioning.”

He claimed the investigation into the leak of footage showing IDF servicemen sexually abusing a Palestinian security prisoner at Sde Teiman was “buried” by the High Court, while an investigation into Labor MK Naama Lazimi for setting fires during a protest was also “buried” by Baharav-Miara despite a police request.

“The leak of the protocol from the Knesset by Gilad Kariv, — despite the request of the Knesset officer, there is no investigation,” he continued, referring to suspicions in January that the Labor lawmaker leaked secret protocols from the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “The deep state wants us in jail. Full stop.”

Amid an influx in Palestinian detainees due to the Gaza war, the military opened a detention facility at a base located in Sde Teiman in southern Israel, where it held Gazans suspected of terror activities. Various reports have alleged widespread misconduct and abuse at the site, including extreme use of physical restraints, beatings, neglect of medical problems, arbitrary punishments and more.

This led the army to launch a number of investigations related to incidents at the facility.

When Military Police arrived at Sde Teiman on July 29 seeking to detain the soldiers in connection to an incident of suspected “serious abuse of a detainee,” angry riots that included the far-right politicians and other activists storming two IDF facilities broke out demanding the soldiers be released.

Throughout the Israel-Hamas war, Sde Teiman has been used to hold more than 1,000 detainees from Gaza who were suspected of terrorist activity. The majority were suspected of taking part in Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, though some were arrested during the subsequent IDF campaign in Gaza.

A petition was filed last year to the High Court of Justice demanding the facility be shut down amid the accusations. In a ruling in September 2024, the court warned the state that it must abide by the law, but did not order the government to shut the prison down.

The court noted in its final decision that conditions at Sde Teiman had changed significantly since the motion was filed. Amid the legal pressure, the government vastly reduced the number of detainees held at the facility from some 700 at its peak to several dozen as of the end of August.

The government also told the court in a written submission that it had reduced the use of restraints, and was providing food and medical treatment in accordance with the requirements of the law.

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