Israeli military drops charges against soldiers charged with abusing Palestinian prisoner

The Israeli military says it is dropping charges against five soldiers who were accused of sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee in an encounter partially caught on camera. The army announced the decision at a time when time when much of the country’s attention is focused on the war with Iran. The leaked video of the abuse was aired last year by Israel’s Channel 12 and purported to show an incident in which the soldiers sodomized the Palestinian detainee from Gaza. Israel’s move to arrest the soldiers in 2024 prompted fury from hard-line ultranationalists. Members of Israel’s far-right government called the investigation into their conduct an affront to their service.