Through the Hamas-led assault on Israel on October 7, the Israeli military did deploy the so-called Hannibal Directive, which permits the military to make use of all obligatory drive to stop troopers from being captured, ensuing within the lack of civilian and navy lives, Israel A Haaretz investigation discovered.
This is what we all know to date:
What’s the Hannibal Directive?
The directive, often known as the Hannibal Process or Hannibal Protocol, has been stored secret by navy censorship for practically 20 years. It permits the Israeli navy to make use of any drive obligatory to stop Israeli troopers from being captured and brought into enemy territory, even actions that outcome within the loss of life of these captives.
Israeli military commanders developed the doctrine in 1986 after three troopers of the Givati Brigade of Infantry had been captured by Lebanese Hezbollah.
On the time, Israel occupied southern Lebanon and invaded the nation in 1982.
In that incident, members of the brigade noticed a automobile taking their comrades away however no pictures had been fired. This directive was launched to make sure this doesn’t occur once more.
In keeping with the Israeli authorities, the stays of the captured troopers had been returned to Israel in 1996 in alternate for the our bodies of 123 Hezbollah fighters.
Yehuda Shaul, founding father of the Israeli NGO “Breaking the Silence” and who served within the Israeli military from 2001 to 2004, advised Al Jazeera final November that Israel’s subsequent hardline stance was as a result of the kidnapping of troopers was a strategic transfer by the enemy. . Captivity provides them negotiating energy and the power to affect nationwide morale and public assist for the battle, he stated. Moreover, if a soldier is killed earlier than being captured, the enemy loses entry to strategic info.
Within the present battle, the destiny of captives taken into Gaza by Hamas militants on October 7 continues to drive Israeli public opinion in opposition to the federal government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. For the general public, the return of the prisoners had turn into a decisive side of the struggle. Their welfare is ranked as a precedence in varied opinion polls performed by Israeli establishments.
The identical goes for earlier prisoners. In 2006, Hamas detained Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. After 5 years in captivity, he was launched in alternate for greater than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, the best ratio of troopers launched by Israel.
The origin of the order’s identify is disputed, with some sources stating that it was named after a Carthaginian normal who selected to commit suicide by poisoning quite than be captured by the Romans in 181 BC.
Nonetheless, Israeli navy officers stated the identify was randomly generated by a pc.
In 2016, Israeli media, together with the Occasions of Israel, reported that Israel’s chief of navy employees, Lieutenant Common Gadi Eisenkot, had determined to “cancel” the Hannibal Protocol as a result of the freedoms granted by the protocol had been clearly disturbing. Puzzled.
The Occasions of Israel reported on the time: “The directive permits troopers to make use of doubtlessly massive quantities of drive to stop troopers from falling into enemy arms. This contains the potential for endangering the lives of the troopers concerned with a purpose to stop seize.
“Nonetheless, some officers believed that this order meant that troopers ought to deliberately kill their comrade to stop his seize, quite than that they could unintentionally injure or kill him whereas attempting.”
What did the Haaretz investigation reveal?
Regardless of experiences that the directive had been rescinded as early as 2016, a Haaretz investigation revealed on Sunday discovered that Israeli commanders had been confused in regards to the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas militants on military outposts and surrounding areas. The response ordered the deployment with none warning or additional clarification.
The assault killed 1,139 folks and an extra 251 had been taken as prisoners to Gaza.
With a purpose to examine Israel’s response to the raid, Haaretz reporters reviewed navy paperwork and obtained testimonies from troopers, mid-level and senior navy officers, revealing the orders and choices made that day by the Gaza Division, Southern Command and the Israeli Common Employees. program, not solely demonstrating intensive information of the Hannibal Protocol, but additionally its use at varied factors within the assault.
Through the chaos, whereas Israeli military commanders struggled to totally grasp the dimensions of the Hamas assault, the directive was stated to have been deployed at three navy installations. Nonetheless, these orders didn’t differentiate between captured troopers and civilians.
In keeping with Haaretz, at 7:18 a.m., within the early levels of the assault, there have been experiences of kidnappings in Beit Hanoon, the crossing level between Israel and Gaza, and the order from the division headquarters was merely ” Hannibal”. in Erez” with out additional rationalization or clarification, indicating that its that means was already recognized to everybody included within the message.
About 5 hours after the assault started, a message was despatched to Gaza authorities ordering: “No automobiles can return to Gaza.”
A supply in Israel’s Southern Command, accountable for policing components of the border with Egypt, Jordan and Gaza, later advised Haaretz: “Everybody knew at the moment that these automobiles may very well be carrying kidnapped civilians or troopers… Everybody knew Nobody or car is allowed to return to Gaza.
A U.N.-backed report final month put the full variety of civilians and troopers killed in Israeli fireplace that day at greater than a dozen. Nonetheless, Haaretz stated it was unable to find out the extent of the harm to Israel brought on by the directive.
Have the Hannibal Directives been utilized in different contexts?
The Hannibal Directive had been used or suspected to have been deployed on a number of events till the directive was thought to have been rescinded in 2016.
- In October 2000, three Israeli troopers had been captured by Hezbollah within the Shab’a Farms (Har Dov) on the border between Lebanon and Syria within the occupied Golan Heights. After discovering that the troopers had been captured, Israel’s Northern Command ordered a “Hannibal posture,” which resulted in Israeli assault helicopters opening fireplace on a convoy believed to be carrying the captured troopers.
- In 2006, after an Israeli soldier was kidnapped by Hamas, the Hannibal Directive was invoked, but it surely was too late to implement it. A month later, two Israeli troopers had been deployed once more after being captured by Hezbollah. The Washington Publish later quoted a senior Israeli official as saying: “If we discover them, we’ll struggle them, even when it means killing troopers.”
- The directive can also be stated to have been initiated throughout Israel’s 2008 struggle in Gaza, when a Palestinian’s home was shelled to stop the seize of a wounded Israeli soldier.
- The command was deployed in Rafah in 2014 following the kidnapping of a junior Israeli navy officer. Amnesty Worldwide investigated the bloodbath that adopted the soldier’s seize, concluding that the implementation of Hannibal’s directive resulted within the deaths of as much as 200 Palestinian civilians, together with 75 youngsters, and that the assault amounted to “Battle crimes”. The Israeli military later denied that the directive had been issued however admitted to citing it a number of occasions throughout radio communications.
- The Hannibal Directive can also be believed to have been used throughout the 2014 Battle of Shujayeh in Gaza Metropolis and within the Qalandiya refugee camp in 2016, when an Israeli soldier went lacking within the camp, main to an enormous deployment of troops.
- “Haaretz” quoted a senior navy supply as saying that Hannibal ordered the deployment on October 7 final yr, not the division commander. The newspaper requested who issued the order, and the supply stated “it might be decided by means of a post-war investigation.”
What does the Israeli authorities say in regards to the Hannibal Directive?
In 2006, the Jerusalem Publish described the directive as normal process utilized in “rumored” kidnapping makes an attempt. In keeping with the newspaper, “troopers had been knowledgeable, though by no means formally” of the order’s contents.
The Israeli navy typically denies its interpretation of the directive as allowing the killing of fellow troopers. Nonetheless, confusion over the wording of the directive and the truth that written variations of the settlement are restricted to senior officers have led to ambiguity in regards to the worth of particular person lives in kidnapping incidents.
In 2011, then-military chief Benny Gantz publicly said that the directive didn’t permit the killing of Israeli troopers to stop kidnappings.
What did the Israeli navy say?
It has been extensively reported that dialogue of the Hannibal Directive was banned by Israel’s navy censors, and as late as 2003, the navy had not formally commented on its use.
An Israeli navy spokesman advised Haaretz that the military “has begun an inside investigation into what occurred on and earlier than October 7,” including that “the aim of those investigations is to attract classes in order that we are able to proceed investigation”. struggle. When these investigations are accomplished, the outcomes shall be transparently made accessible to the general public.
