Israelis storm bases in protest after soldiers arrested on suspicion of abusing Palestinian prisoners

Protesters, including at least one far-right lawmaker, stormed two Israeli military bases on Monday after soldiers were arrested on suspicion of severely assaulting a Palestinian prisoner.

Photos and videos shared on social media showed protesters waving Israeli flags outside the Sde Teiman detention camp, where Palestinian prisoners including members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force are held.

Pictured in the crowd was far-right Israeli lawmaker Zvi Sukkot, a lawmaker for the Religious Zionism party — one of the far-right parties relied on by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government. Sukkot’s office did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment.

Elsewhere, Israeli police said protesters had also stormed a separate judicial building at the Beit Lid base in central Israel, where soldiers were reportedly taken for questioning.

Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Israeli army’s chief of staff, condemned the rioters for “serious, unlawful behavior bordering on anarchy.”

The protests broke out after the Israeli military announced on Monday that its attorney general’s office had ordered an investigation into “suspected serious mistreatment of a prisoner” at the Sde Teiman facility, which is located in the Negev desert.

At least nine suspects have been detained for questioning over the alleged incident, which has sparked outrage among some Israelis, the military said.

The exact details of the alleged abuse were not immediately clear. The IDF did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for more information.

Some videos shared on social media appeared to show clashes between protesters and Israeli soldiers and officers at the Sde Teiman facility. NBC News was not immediately able to independently verify the footage.

The Israel Police said in a statement that officers had attempted to “maintain law and order in a professional manner, while allowing freedom of demonstration and protest.”

Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog condemned the incident.

“The invasion of a military base by civilians, especially when it happens with the encouragement and involvement of government officials, is a serious, dangerous, illegal and irresponsible act that primarily harms us as a people and as a state,” Herzog said in a statement shared on X on Monday.

Netanyahu was nevertheless criticized by opposition leader Yair Lapid, who accused him of failing to rein in members of his own government. “Whoever brings criminals into his government should not be surprised if he loses control over them,” he said.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the Religious Zionism party of which Sukkot is a member, said he fully supported the civil protests against what he described as “the terrible injustice against the reservists in the Sde Teiman.”

But he called on protesters to obey the law and “not enter the bases” or confront authorities.

The arrest of several Israeli reservists comes weeks after the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, called on the Israeli government in late May to investigate multiple allegations of “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” against detained Palestinians.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported at the time that it appeared that Israeli authorities had not taken effective measures to investigate the allegations.