Israel's Use of "Hannibal Directive" on October 7
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth recently published an article which carries new documentation and reports that Israeli HQ ordered troops to shoot Israeli captives on October 7, 2023. The article, translated into English by the Electronic Intifada, quotes Ronen Bergman and Yoav Zitun, two journalists who are said to have "extensive sources inside Israel's military and intelligence establishment." They say that at midday on October 7, Israel's supreme military command ordered all units to prevent the capture of Israeli citizens "at any cost" -- even by firing on them. The military "instructed all its fighting units to perform the Hannibal Directive in practice, although it did so without stating that name explicitly," the Israeli journalists revealed. They also revealed that "some 70 vehicles" driven by Palestinian fighters returning to Gaza were blown up by Israeli helicopter gunships, drones or tanks. Many of these vehicles contained Israeli captives. The journalists wrote that, "it is not clear at this stage how many of the captives were killed due to the operation of this order [to the air force]" that they should prevent their being taken to Gaza at all costs. "At least in some of the cases, everyone in the vehicle was killed," the journalists said.
In November, the Electronic Intifada reported on Israeli air force footage, as well as interviews with attack helicopter pilots in an Israeli article, showing that they had been ordered to "shoot at everything" moving between Israel's frontier settlements and Gaza. That Israeli article stated that "in the first four hours helicopters and fighter craft attacked about 300 targets, most in Israeli territory." Bergman and Zitun's new article says that by the end of the day, Drone Squadron 161 alone (which flies Elbit's Hermes 450 drone) "performed no fewer than 110 attacks on some 1,000 targets, most of which were inside Israel."
The new article by Bergman and Zitun says that the original Hannibal Directive ordered Israeli forces to "halt the capturing force at any price" and that "in the course of a capture, the main task becomes rescuing our soldiers from the captors, even at the price of hitting or injuring our soldiers."
Two years after it was exposed by journalists during the 2014 war on Gaza, the directive was allegedly revoked, or at least "clarified." But Bergman and Zitun confirm in their new article that at midday on October 7, the Israeli military "decided to return to a version of the Hannibal Directive." They write that "the instruction was to stop 'at any cost' any attempt by 'Hamas terrorists to return to Gaza,' using language very similar to that of the original Hannibal Directive, despite repeated promises by the defense apparatus that the directive had been canceled." The new article explains that Israel Defense Force (IDF) headquarters ordered all units to carry out the Hannibal Directive soon after the first videos of the Israeli captives emerged.
Bergman and Zitun recount that IDF division command issued a direct order on Oct 7: "You have authority to fire at will." Acting on the orders of young officers from the so-called "Fire Canopy" mobile command center, attack helicopter pilots were also told: "You have permission [to open fire] until further notice -- and throughout the entire area."
Bergman also writes for the New York Times Magazine and is the author of several books about Israeli spy agencies, including Rise and Kill First. Speaking to the Haaretz podcast following the publication of the article by Yedioth Ahronoth, Asa Kasher, the author of the Israeli army's code of "ethics," joined the chorus calling for an investigation into the use of the Hannibal doctrine on and soon after October 7. "Kasher stridently agreed with the families that an investigation is needed immediately," wrote Haaretz, and that this should not wait until the end of the war in Gaza.
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 8 - January 31, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54089.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca