In a dramatic turn following her resignation, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, Israel’s recently ousted Military Advocate General, has gone missing, prompting a massive police operation along a northern Tel Aviv beach. Authorities expressed grave concern for her well-being as searches intensified on Sunday afternoon, with her abandoned vehicle discovered near a treacherous cliffside. Yerushalmi disappeared just two days after she resigned over leaking videos allegedly showing Israeli military abusing Palestinian detainees.
As per reports, 55-year-old Tomer-Yerushalmi vanished without contact since early morning. Her car was found still running near HaTzuk (Cliff) Beach, a scenic but perilous stretch known for its rocky drops into the Mediterranean. Israeli police have mobilized land, sea, and air units, and deployed helicopters for overhead scans, to comb the area for any sign of the former IDF legal chief.
A special command post was established on-site to coordinate the effort, but as of late afternoon, no trace had been found, and her cellphone signal remained untraceable. The IDF announced that it would use “all available IDF resources to try and locate her as soon as possible.”
Jerusalem Post reported that a letter was found near her car, but no other detail about it was provided.
The disappearance comes just two days after Tomer-Yerushalmi’s forced exit from her role as the IDF’s top legal officer, a position she held since 2021 as the first woman to serve in it. Her ousting stemmed from a high-stakes scandal over a leaked surveillance video from the Sde Teiman detention facility in southern Israel, where Palestinian detainees from Gaza are held. The footage, aired by Channel 12 News in August 2024, allegedly captured reserve soldiers sexually assaulting and gang-raping a handcuffed detainee in July 2024, shielding their actions with riot gear to evade cameras.
The graphic clip ignited global outrage, fuelling accusations of systematic abuse in Israeli prisons and drawing scrutiny from the International Criminal Court. Under intense investigation, Tomer-Yerushalmi admitted on October 31, 2025, to personally authorizing the video’s release to media outlets, bypassing standard protocols in a bid to pre-empt a potential military police probe.
She claimed the decision aimed to ensure transparency amid fears the incident could escalate into a larger crisis, but her action was deemed a reckless breach that smeared the IDF’s reputation. Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that she will be fired, after which she tendered her resignation on Friday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the leak, calling it “the most serious PR attack against Israel to date,” adding that it inflicted “enormous reputational damage” during the ongoing Gaza war.
