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Police have definitively identified some 20 people — including Knesset members — who broke into IDF bases in July, but have not interrogated any of them in connection to the incidents, as senior officers oppose the investigation, Haaretz reported on Sunday.

The suspects are nevertheless expected to be called in for questioning soon, the report stated, but due to the opposition of several senior law enforcement officials, it is unlikely that any indictments will be filed against them.

Dozens of activists broke into the Sde Teiman military base on July 29, after military police arrived at the site to detain 10 reservist soldiers suspected of abusing a Palestinian security prisoner held at the base’s detention center.

According to Haaretz, Yigal Ben-Shalom, then-head of the police’s investigation and intelligence division, said in a meeting several months ago of senior police officials that it was the police’s duty to investigate the break-ins.

In response, Moshe Pinchi, then-security affairs secretary to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, reportedly bristled, asking if they’d also investigate left-wing protesters in Tel Aviv who, he asserted, broke into the Israel Defense Forces headquarters, referring to weekly demonstrations there against the government and in favor of a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas.

The police ultimately decided to open an investigation, together with the IDF Military Police, into the ultranationalist riots.

Senior police officials, however, reportedly still oppose the investigation, and one such official told the newspaper that there is little chance any of those identified in the footage will be indicted.

Through reviewing footage of the break-ins, officers from the police’s anti-fraud and intelligence units have managed to definitively identify more than 20 participants, among them lawmakers, Haaretz reported.

Among those who entered the Sde Teiman base without authorization were MK Nissim Vaturi of the Likud party, MK Zvi Sukkot of the Religious Zionism party, and National Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu of Otzma Yehudit. The three have yet to be questioned, Haaretz reported, although police have been granted permission to do so.

The IDF, meanwhile, is dissatisfied with the police’s management of the investigation, and has privately criticized it, the report said.

Sukkot argued to the Knesset’s Ethics Committee last week that the law granting MKs partial immunity should be amended to explicitly permit their entrance to any place at any time, according to a report in the Israel Hayom daily. Separately, the Knesset advanced a bill earlier this month that would make it harder to open a criminal investigation into an MK.


Also among those identified as having broken into the Beit Lid base in July is a right-wing activist named Eyal Lahiani, who was arrested last month after he tried to disrupt a hostage-deal demonstration in front of the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv and started brawling with protesters, according to Haaretz.