leaking

The Israeli military’s top lawyer, Major-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, has resigned after admitting to leaking footage showing the gang rape of a prisoner at the Sde Temain prison facility in August last year.

The video of the rape had originally been leaked to the press in early August in the midst of a right-wing backlash following the arrest of a number of soldiers for the rape of a Palestinian prisoner.

In her resignation statement on Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi blamed pressure from the right-wing on her rape investigation for her decision to leak the footage, claiming that she was countering “false propaganda directed against the military law enforcement authorities”.

In the leaked footage, soldiers can be seen grabbing and leading away a blindfolded Palestinian prisoner before surrounding him with riot shields to obscure the rape.

“For 15 minutes, the accused kicked the detainee, stomped on him, stood on his body, hit him and pushed him all over his body, including with clubs, dragged his body along the ground, and used a taser gun on him, including on his head,” the original indictment stated.

According to medical information obtained by the Israeli daily Haaretz, the victim suffered a ruptured bowel, severe anal and lung injuries, and broken ribs as a result of the assault. He later required surgery.

What happened to the soldiers?

At least nine soldiers were detained in connection with the man’s rape. All but five were released relatively quickly.

In February, the remaining soldiers were indicted for “severely abusing” the detainee, but not raping him. The trial is ongoing.

A United Nations commission, reviewing the change of indictment and other instances of Israel’s use of sexual and gender-based violence, determined that the decision to downgrade the indictments, despite the evidence, “will inevitably result in a more lenient punishment” if there is a conviction.

Why weren’t Israeli politicians calling for accountability?

Because they determined that doing so was somehow unpatriotic.

A number of Israel’s far-right politicians, including Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, were among those who stormed the Sde Teiman prison in protest at the arrest of the soldiers for rape.

Israel’s hard-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir appeared to address Tomer-Yerushalmi directly in July 2024, writing in Hebrew, “The Military Advocate General, take your hands off the reservists!” he said, referring to the soldiers accused of rape.

Ben-Gvir’s fellow traveller on the far-right, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, was equally active on social media at the time, writing that the alleged rapists should be treated like “heroes, not villains”.

Returning to social media during the furore following the rape, Smotrich chose to ignore the credible accusations of rape and instead called for “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world, and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them”.

How have the critics reacted to Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation?

Many of the loudest voices in defending the alleged rapists were equally vocal in welcoming the resignation of the woman responsible for sharing evidence of that rape.

Writing on social media hours after Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation, Smotrich accused her and much of Israel’s judicial system of rank corruption, as well as launching what he called an “anti-Semitic blood libel” against their military.

Ben-Gvir was no less critical of Israel’s judicial system in the leaking of the footage, writing: “All those involved in the affair must be held accountable.”

Both ministers are active supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing attempts to weaken the judiciary and reduce its political oversight.

Have other crimes been committed at Sde Teiman against Palestinians?

At least 135 of the mutilated bodies returned to Palestinian officials in Gaza by Israel last week as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal, had been held at Sde Teiman, documents that accompanied each corpse showed.

Several of the bodies had been left with blindfolds on, and some had their hands still tied behind their back. One had a rope around its neck.

The same UN report that examined the reduced indictment against the soldiers also noted that detainees at Sde Teiman – including children – were regularly shackled, forced into stress positions, denied toilets and showers and beaten.

Some were subjected to sexual violence, including the insertion of objects, electric shocks and rape.

July 19 (UPI) — YouTube influencer Jon Prosser allegedly violated Apple’s intellectual property rights by illegally accessing and releasing trade secrets regarding the tech firm’s iOS 26 operating system before its launch.

Prosser and co-defendant Michael Ramacciotti allegedly misappropriated trade secrets and violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Apple says in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Northern California.

Apple revealed its iOS 26 operating system on June 9 during its Worldwide Developers Conference but says Prosser released important details two months earlier.

Prosser’s YouTube channel, “Front Page Tech,” commonly predicts tech launches of consumer goods, including popular Apple products.

Apple says he and Ramacciotti schemed to “break into an Apple development iPhone, steal Apple’s trade secrets and profit from the theft,” Wired reported on Friday.

“Prosser, working with defendant Michael Ramacciotti, improperly accessed and disclosed Apple’s highly confidential, unreleased software designs, including details regarding the unreleased iOS 19 operating system, which is now known as iOS 26, for Apple mobile devices,” Apple says in the lawsuit.

Apple accuses the pair of conspiring to break into Apple employee Ethan Lipnik’s development iPhone to obtain Apple’s trade secrets. Lipnik worked for Apple from 2023 to 2025, when he was terminated by Apple over the leak, Business Insider reported.

The tech firm says it received an anonymous tip on April 4 that accuses either Prosser or Ramacciotti, who shared housing with Lipnik, of engaging the Apple employee in a FaceTime call that discussed the pending iOS 26 release.

The unreleased operating system at the time was known as iOS 19 among Apple employees.

The anonymous tip says Prosser obtained details on the unreleased operating system’s lock screen, home screen, app animations and app interfaces.

It also says Prosser had video from the FaceTime call that shows the operating system’s unique interface.

Apple claims Prosser learned Ramacciotti needed money and roomed with Lipnik, who worked on the unreleased operating system.

Prosser and Ramacciotti “jointly planned to access Apple’s confidential and trade secret information through Mr. Lipnik’s Apple-owned development iPhone,” Apple says.

The tech firm also says Lipnik provided it with an audio message from Ramacciotti that alleges he used location tracking to learn when Lipnik would be gone for an extended period.

Apple says the message indicates Ramacciotti acquired Lipnik’s passcode and “broke into his development iPhone,” which Lipnik did not properly secure in accordance with company policy.

“As he detailed in the audio message, Mr. Ramacciotti made a video call to Mr. Prosser and ‘showed [the] iOS’ on the development iPhone,” Apple claims.

“He demonstrated several features and applications, disclosing details of the unreleased iOS 19 operating system,” Apple says.

Prosser denies Apple’s claims against him.

“This is not how the situation played out on my end,” Prosser said in an X post on Thursday.

“I did not ‘plot’ to access anyone’s phone,” Prosser continued. “I did not have any passwords. I was unaware of how the information was obtained.”

Prosser said he is “looking forward to speaking with Apple on this.”

Apple says it suffered financial losses exceeding $5,000 over a one-year period and seeks monetary and punitive damages in amounts to be proven at trial, plus interest.

It also seeks injunctive relief to cease Prosser and Ramacciotti’s alleged release of Apple’s trade secrets to third parties without written consent and to return or help Apple to locate and destroy any trade secrets that might remain under their control.

July 11 (UPI) — A retired lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Army has pleaded guilty to transmitting classified national defense information concerning Russia’s war in Ukraine via a foreign dating app to a person claiming to be a woman living in the war-torn country.

The Justice Department said David Slater, 64, of Nebraska pleaded guilty Thursday and faces up to 10 years’ imprisonment, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000 on Oct. 8 when he is scheduled for sentencing.

“David Slater failed in his duty to protect this information by willingly sharing national defense information with an unknown online personality despite having years of military experience that should have caused him to be suspicious of that person’s motives,” U.S. Attorney Lesley Woods of the District of Nebraska said in a statement.

According to federal prosecutors, after retiring from the Army, Slater was hired as a civilian employee of the U.S. Air Force assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base and held a Top Secret security clearance from August 2021 to April 2022.

Court documents state that in his position, Slater attended top-secret classified briefings on the Russia-Ukraine war and conspired to transmit information he learned over an unnamed foreign dating app to a person who claimed to be a woman living in Ukraine.

The purported woman called Slater her “secret informant lover” and her “secret agent” and asked him to send her sensitive classified information.

The quantity and the frequency with which information was exchanged was not revealed, but the Justice Department did confirm that “Slater did, in fact, transmit classified national defense information to her, including regarding military targets and Russian military capabilities relating to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”