Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu and MK Nissim Vaturi announced Wednesday that they would not comply with the decision of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Attorney Amit Isman to summon them for questioning over their involvement in the Sde Teiman break-in. They dismissed the move as “yet another blatant attempt by Gali and Amit to take revenge on right-wing Knesset members.”
On July 29, 2024, military police raided the Sde Teiman prison camp outside Beer Sheva in southern Israel, arriving armed and masked. They detained nine reservists for questioning on suspicion of committing sodomy in the context of the rape of a Hamas Nukhba detainee at the facility.
Following the detention of the suspected soldiers, numerous demonstrators gathered at the gates of the base in protest, with several dozen breaching the entrance. Among them were MKs Zvi Sukkot, Almog Cohen, Tali Gottliev, and Nissim Vaturi, as well as Ministers Yitzhak Wasserlauf and Amichai Eliyahu. The detained soldiers were transferred for questioning to the Beit Lid camp, where demonstrators once again stormed the base and the military court building, clashing with security—similar to how leftist anarchists frequently confront police in Israel without facing prosecution.
Minister Eliyahu strongly opposed the decision to interrogate him, stating: “In a law-abiding state, a Knesset member has a duty to act when there is suspicion of a crime. This is the very essence of the immunity law—not as a shield for the Knesset member, but as protection for the public’s representatives and the public itself against the abuse of governmental power.”
MK Vaturi condemned the move as politically motivated, stating: “You will not silence me. I will not submit to a political interrogation orchestrated by the Deep State attorney and the legal advisor of the Kaplan cult. They will have to drag me out of the Knesset in handcuffs.”
He further demanded, “Before you come after me, interrogate Yair Golan, Naama Lazimi, Ehud Barak, Dan Halutz, and Bogi Ya’alon,” adding, “Or is their immunity guaranteed as part of the coup plot you are leading?”
The group of leftist leaders Vaturi mentioned has been advocating for various degrees of civil disobedience, about which at least one of them, former PM Ehud Barak, shared a vision of Jewish bodies floating in the Yarkon River in Tel Aviv.
Vaturi suggested “This is yet another blatant attempt by the duo Gali and Amit to take revenge on right-wing Knesset members. The fact that they made sure to inform their ‘prosecution spokesperson’—Channel 12’s reporter—beforehand reveals this to be an act of retaliation, lacking both factual and legal foundation.”
Former MK Zvi Sukkot, who resigned from the Knesset in January and, unlike the others, does not have parliamentary immunity, denounced the investigation as politically biased. “This is a political investigation. The probe into the leak of the video was shut down with the approval of the High Court; MK Naama Lazimi was never questioned for lighting bonfires on Ayalon, and MK Gilad Kariv—suspected of leaking minutes from the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee—was shielded from questioning by the AG despite the Knesset officer’s request.”
Sukkot added, “The Deep State is eager to throw us in prison as quickly as possible. But they will not break us.”
