Israel ordered 'Hannibal Directive,' killing own people held captive on Oct. 7

Israel ordered its military forces to implement a controversial procedure, which allows killing of its own civilians and soldiers held captive, after it was caught off guard by Hamas unprecedented operation on Oct.7, a new investigation has revealed.

The procedure, known as Hannibal Directive, is an Israeli military protocol that stipulates the use of maximum force to prevent the capture of soldiers at all costs — even at the cost of the death of the soldier.

The Hebrew edition of Israel’s newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth wrote on Thursday that on the day of Hamas Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, Israel’s military “ordered all of its combat units in practice to use the ‘Hannibal Procedure’ although without clearly mentioning this explicitly by name.”

The order was to stop “at all costs any attempt" by Hamas fighters to return to Gaza, even though they might hold captives. 

According to another Israeli newspaper, Times of Israel, the Hannibal Protocol “allows soldiers to use potentially massive amounts of force to prevent a soldier from falling into the hands of the enemy.”

“This includes the possibility of endangering the life of the soldier in question in order to prevent his capture.”

During Hamas's operation against the occupied territories, the resistance movement successfully captured a great number of Israeli forces and settlers.

According to Yediot Ahronoth, it is not clear how many of those captives were killed by Israeli forces during the operation.

Families of settlers killed by Israeli fire on October 7 demand probe

The families of Israeli settlers who were killed by an Israeli tank fire on October 7 in Kibbutz Be’eri have called for a "comprehensive and transparent investigation" into the incident.

In the week after the operation against Israel, the paper wrote, Israeli soldiers checked about 70 vehicles that were left in the area between the occupied territories and the Gaza Strip.

“These are vehicles that did not reach Gaza, because on the way they were shot by a combat helicopter, an anti-tank missile or a tank, and at least in some cases everyone in the vehicle was killed.”

Earlier in November, a pilot with the Israeli forces also said that the military implemented the Hannibal Protocol during the Hamas operation to prevent them from being taken to Gaza as hostages.

And an Israeli brigadier general, Barak Hiram, told the New York Times that he gave an order for a tank commander to open fire on Oct 7, on a home in Kibbutz Be’eri to kill Hamas fighters, even though 14 Israeli captives were barricaded inside the home.

“The negotiations are over. Break in, even at the cost of civilian casualties,” Hiram told the tank commander.

Except of the captives, all others were killed, including 12-year-old twins Liel and Yanai Hetzroni, according to previous reports. Their bodies were so severely damaged and burned that it took weeks to identify them.

The reports now raise questions about the deaths of many Israeli hostages, who were initially presumed taken captive by Hamas, but whose bodies were later discovered near the border with Gaza.

The regime says around 1,200 Israelis were killed on Oct.7.

In the event of Al-Aqsa Storm Operation, which was carried out in response to the regime’s unabated campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians, Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his military forces to attack the besieged Gaza Strip with a force “like never before.”

The brutal war on the besieged territory has so far killed over 23,700 people, more than 10,000 of whom children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 60,000 Palestinians have also been injured. 

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