Ronit Eiges, mother of the late Capt. Tomer Eiges said she was ashamed to have served in Unit 8200, the same unit in which her late son served, in an interview with Walla on Sunday.
Unit 8200 is the equivalent of the US National Security Agency or Britain’s GCHQ and is the largest single military unit in the Israel Defense Forces. It is descended from early codebreaking and intelligence units formed at the birth of the state of Israel in 1948.
Capt. Eiges died under mysterious circumstances in a military prison in 2021. His death was announced following a Military Court of Appeals ruling on Saturday. The identification was ordered by Maj.-Gen. Orly Markman, president of the Military Court of Appeals, following a request from Storyline Productions and journalist Omri Asenheim.
Eiges sharply criticized the IDF’s conduct, claiming her son died in prison due to medical neglect. After watching footage from her son’s prison cell during his last days alive, she noted that “it took a long time for them to find out and open the door. He could have died from this oversight and lack of attention in his last minutes.”
“Even the most healthy person would not have been able to survive there,” Eiges said.
“There was a huge mess and oversight with the medications that nobody noticed,” Eiges said. “He had a million pills, and everyone kept giving him more and more.”
She also described a complete lack of empathy on the part of the IDF when her son passed in 2021. “The disconnect was disgraceful,” Eiges said. “No one came to visit or call.”
According to her, even at his funeral, his friends were required to come in civilian clothes rather than their IDF uniforms. It also took nearly a year after Capt. Eiges’s death for the IDF to recognize him as a fallen soldier; therefore, he was buried in a civilian cemetery, and his tombstone has no indication of his military service.Â
“We deserve answers,” she told Walla. “With the system running the way it is, there’s no telling when this could happen again.”
The legal proceedings against Capt. Eiges were dropped upon the event of his death, and the case was never fully resolved in court. The details of his indictment are still under a gag order.
Capt. Tomer Eiges named as intelligence officer who died in military prison in 2021
Prior to enlisting in the IDF, Eiges worked as a software developer at a startup company in Tel Aviv, where he received much recognition from key industry figures.
Eiges had advanced skills in information security, signal analysis, and algorithm development, and was fluent in Hebrew, English, Spanish, Russian, and Persian.
He enlisted in the Intelligence Corps in March 2016, where he served as an academic professional officer (KMA) and later as a senior academic officer (KAB).
During his service, he made significant contributions to Israeli security, received numerous certificates of appreciation, and was a key figure on a team that won the prestigious annual Israel Defense Prize.
On the evening of May 17, 2021, Eiges died under circumstances that remain unknown. The Military Attorney’s Office has not yet finalized its conclusion regarding Eiges’s death.
Reuters contributed to this report.