Far-right protests rock Israel after soldiers detained on charges of sexually abusing Palestinian prisoner

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has strongly condemned violent protests which broke out in Israel on Monday after soldiers on a military base were detained by police on charges of sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner.

Demonstrators broke into the Sde Teiman prison camp near the desert city of Beersheba, where nine soldiers were detained on Monday amid clashes with military police after a Palestinian prisoner was reportedly hospitalized following serious sexual assaults.

Other protests took place in a number of locations, including the Beit Lid military base north-east of Tel Aviv.

In a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Gallant wrote that the protests represent a "serious threat to state security."

The defence minister called on Netanyahu to "take tough action against coalition members who were involved in the unrest."

He also called for an investigation into whether the far-right Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir deliberately prevented police forces from taking action against the perpetrators of violence.

As political leaders responded to the demonstrations with fury, Israeli media reported that the military is planning to deploy three battalions to prevent further protests.

During a visit to Beit Lid, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said that attempts by rioters to infiltrate military bases bordered on anarchy, and would be treated as criminal behaviour.

The protests are harming the army, state security and the war effort, Halevi added.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on the social media platform X that the unrest showed that the country's red lines had been crossed.

"MPs and ministers taking part in an advance by violent militias into military bases is a message to the state of Israel: they have ended democracy, they have ended the rule of law. A fascist, dangerous group is jeopardizing the existence of the state of Israel," he said.

The Sde Teiman prisoner camp houses fighters from an elite unit of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which sparked the current conflict in Gaza with the October 7 attacks in Israel.

Thousands of Palestinians are being held in Israeli detention facilities. The human rights organization Amnesty International recently accused Israel of mistreating and torturing Palestinian prisoners from the Gaza Strip.