IDF Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Itay Offir has not yet reached a decision regarding the Sdei Teiman alleged sexual assault of a Palestinian detainee case, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Earlier on Wednesday, Channel 14 reported that Offir was leaning toward closing the case despite his predecessor, Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, having filed indictments this past February against five soldiers for the alleged crimes.
In contrast, the Post understands that this leak is fake news, and likely an attempt by interested parties to influence Offir's decision.
None of this means that Offir might not eventually close the case, but he simply is not all that close to reaching a decision.
Navigating Israel's political landscape
How quickly Offir gets familiar with international law and criminal law issues and how successfully he navigates Israel's domestic political and global diplomatic needs are not just another issue, but may decide his legacy near his start in office.
From a domestic political perspective in terms of the current government, the safest move would likely be to tank the Sdei Teiman case against five IDF soldiers for allegedly sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee.
He would not need to call the case a "blood libel" as some coalition politicians have done, but could simply close it based on technical problems, which he could blame on his predecessor.
The technical problems are real and many: Tomer Yerushalmi leaked a video of the five defendants allegedly beating the detainee, harming some of their fair trial rights, the lead prosecutor for the case Lt. Col. Lior Ayash is one of the officials under a criminal probe which disrupts the progress and management of the case, the Palestinian detainee who was beaten was sent back to Gaza without having testified in court.
But simply closing the case would be problematic not only for Offir's standing within Israel's legal community, but also before the International Criminal Court.
All of the technical issues above are real, but all of them can also be overcome, and to close the case, Offir would need to ignore the medical report, which appears far more damning against the five soldiers than the widely discussed video.
The five IDF soldiers, broadly speaking, do not deny that they had a physical altercation with the detainee.
Mostly, they claim self-defense and that they had to get him under control.
But the medical report reveals seven of his ribs were broken and that an object was either shoved up his anus or that his but was stabbed with an object.
These do not seem like actions consistent with merely getting control over one detainee in self-defense. And the much-defamed video was not doctored. It, in fact, seems to show IDF soldiers beating the detainee. It is just that it was edited to shorten it from many hours of footage where nothing happened, to the moments when the more critical events occurred.
Ignoring all of that evidence could permanently harm his standing with the Israeli legal community and might make it harder for him to manage the IDF legal division.
More importantly, the ICC would likely reject Israeli explanations that it had taken the beating issue seriously, but that a strange series of events, including Tomer Yerushalmi's personal meltdown, had simply unwound the case on technical grounds.