Hannibal Directive

Hannibal Directive  (war crime)
Interest of	Benny Gantz
Secret directive whereby Israeli officers and soldiers are required to do everything in their power to prevent captures, even if this entails the death of the prisoner.

The Hannibal Directive (or "Procedure" or "Protocol") is a procedure used by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. According to the secret directive, Israeli officers and soldiers are required to do everything in their power to prevent captures, even if this entails the death of the prisoner.

“The IDF instructed all its fighting units in practice to follow the 'Hannibal Directive', although without clearly mentioning this explicit name. The instruction is to stop 'at all costs' any attempt by Hamas terrorists to return to Gaza, using language very similar to the original 'Hannibal Directive', despite repeated assurances by the security establishment that the procedure has been cancelled. It is not clear at this point how many of the abductees were killed due to the activation of this [Hannibal] order on October 7.”
Ronen Bergman (6 September 2024) 
"Hannibal at Erez, dispatch a Zik (attack drone)," came the command on October 7.

Background

It was introduced in 1986, after a number of abductions of IDF soldiers in Lebanon and the subsequent controversial prisoner exchanges. The full text of the directive has never been published and until 2003 Israeli military censorship even forbade any discussion of the subject in the press. The Hannibal Directive has been changed several times. At one time the formulation was that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces."

The prisoner himself is also allegedly ordered not to be captured alive and to kill himself and his kidnappers in extreme cases by means of a hand grenade.

The Hannibal Directive has, at times, apparently existed in two different versions, one top-secret written version, accessible only to the upper echelon of the IDF, and one "oral law" version for division commanders and lower levels. In the latter versions, "by all means" was often interpreted literally, as in "an IDF soldier was 'better dead than abducted'". In 2011, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz stated the directive does not permit killing IDF soldiers.

Past incidents

The Hannibal Directive has not prevented the capture of a single Israeli soldier. Among the 11 Israelis involved in the seven reported Hannibal incidents, only one soldier (Gilad Shalit) survived. In his case the declaration of Hannibal occurred too late to have any influence on the course of events. There is however only one case where Israeli forces have been officially confirmed to be directly responsible for an Israeli death.

Questions about October 7th

Full article: Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Full article: October 2023 Gaza−Israel conflict

What Really Happened On October 7th

On 23 October 2023, Jonathan Cook posted on X:

So much space continues to be dedicated to the Hamas attack more than two weeks on (from the start of the October 2023 Gaza−Israel conflict). But the article linked below is a rare attempt to try to piece together the events of 7 October 2023 without simply relying on Israel's official, increasingly strained narrative.

The author refers to the infamous Hannibal Directive, which compels the Israeli army to kill Israelis rather than let them be taken hostage. It usually applies to military personnel, and has been used a number of times in the past.

But the author points out there are plenty of indications to suggest it was applied *as policy* towards Israeli civilians during the Hamas attack. In other words, the army appears to have preferred to kill both the Israelis and Hamas militants holding them in communities near Gaza rather than try to negotiate a release.

Were a significant number of the 1,400 Israelis who died during the Hamas attack killed as a result of intentional efforts to stop them being taken by Hamas into Gaza?

On 27 October 2023, MintPress News reported in a YouTube video:

As the fog of war clears, it seems the true story of October 7 is not quite as cut and dry as it once seemed.

MintPress director Mnar Adley reports on how Israel used the Hannibal Directive that resulted in the deaths of Israeli civilians at the hands of Israeli soldiers and police.

This is a key piece of context missing from mainstream corporate media reporting on October 7th.

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Dear Mr Starmer, we fact-checked your 7 Oct statement. You’re welcome	blog post	7 October 2024	Editor	"Appalling mix of regurgitated and already-discredited lies with grotesque one-sidedness"
Document:Goldstone: An act of negligence	Article	4 April 2011	Noura Erakat	Downplay of Israeli aggression towards civilians during the Gaza War, causes scholars to question Richard Goldstone. Regardless of what may have been his best intentions, Goldstone has negligently, one hopes not deliberately, undermined the laws of armed conflict and emboldened those states, like Israel, who believe that it is a surmountable nuisance.
Document:Starmer’s purges of Labour have mutated into the arrest of Palestine supporters	blog post	30 August 2024	Jonathan Cook	Britain’s authoritarian new prime minister is expanding the scope of already draconian laws to redefine his critics as ‘supporters’ of terrorism. Starmer wants to be judge, jury and executioner. We must not let him get away with it.

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 23 October 2023.
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