Israeli Newspaper Confirms IDF Employed ‘Hannibal Directive’ on October 7

July 8, 2024 admin Finance 0

Conor here: After the mass rape claims were exposed, it now seems that the fact that Israel killed many of its own citizens on October 7th is starting to leak out of the mainstream media.

Of course, many have been pointing this out for months and have been vilified as antisemitic conspiracy theorists for doing so.

Some even lost their jobs:

The Washington Post played a hit on Electronic Intifada and others like The Grayzone back in January. While it’s good to see Haaretz finally reporting on the Hannibal Directive, it’s almost seven months too late. And one wonders how the WaPo hit piece was used to suppress access to “conspiracy theories.” As the Electronic Intifada pointed out at the time:

The Washington Post’s attack on The Electronic Intifada shows the frustration of Israel and its attackers in the US media because they have not succeeded in putting the Israeli version of events.

With First Amendment protections for free speech still in force in the United States, direct censorship of publications is not an option.

So there’s a nexus between governments, government-funded think tanks and arms manufacturers, and big tech companies that aim to control what we can all say online.

So the Washington Post article may have been used by Israel lobby groups to pressure major tech firms to suppress access to journalists who challenge Israel’s lies, under the banner of fighting “disinformation.”

Will the State Department still pretend to be ignorant?

Will WaPo issue an apology? That is unfortunately likely to happen as the Hannibal Directive news in Haaretz has contributed to Israel’s continued destruction of Gaza. As of the time of this post Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to insist that any deal to stop Gaza must allow Israel to start fighting until its “objectives” are met.

By Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported Sunday that the Israeli military repeatedly used a protocol known as the “Hannibal Directive” during the October 7 attacks led by Hamas in an effort to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers—even if it meant putting hostages’ lives at risk. soldiers and civilians. at risk.

Haaretz has learned based on documents and interviews with Israeli military and senior officials that Hannibal—an operational program created in 1986 that “directs the use of military force to prevent soldiers from being taken into captivity” by enemy militants—was used in “three military facilities that had been infiltrated by the enemy.” Hamas, which may also put civilians in danger.”

In the first hours of the attack led by Hamas, according to Haaretz, the Israeli army was given an order: “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza.”

“At the moment, the IDF was not aware of the level of kidnapping on the Gaza border, but they knew that many people were involved,” the newspaper continued. “Therefore, it became clear what that message meant, and what will be the fate of the other abducted people.”

The full text of the Hannibal Directive has never been published. But according to a report by Haaretz about the order more than two decades ago, part of it says “during the captivity, the main goal is to save our soldiers from the captors even at the cost of injuring or harming our soldiers.”

“Light weapons fire will be used to knock down the hostages or stop them,” it added. “If the car or the kidnappers do not stop, the fire fired by one (the shooter) should be directed at them, deliberately, to hit the kidnappers, even if that means hitting our soldiers. In any case, everything will be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape.”

Israeli authorities have acknowledged “several incidents of our soldiers firing on our forces” on October 7. In April, the Israeli military said one of the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists during the October attack was likely killed by Israeli helicopter fire. .

But the IDF, which has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza since October 7, declined to say whether Hannibal was used during the Hamas-led offensive.

Haaretz emphasized on Sunday that “it does not know how many civilians and soldiers were hit as a result of these procedures, but the information gathered shows that most of the hostages were vulnerable, exposed to Israeli gunfire, even if it was not intended.”

The first use of the Hannibal Directive on October 7 occurred “when an observation post at the Yiftah station reported that someone had been kidnapped at the Erez border crossing, near the IDF liaison office,” Haaretz reported.

“‘Hannibal in Erez’ came an order from divisional headquarters, ‘to send Zik.’ “Zik is an unmanned aircraft, and the meaning of this order was clear,” the newspaper found.

The order was used at least two more times during the attack, according to Haaretz, which cited an unnamed source in Israel’s Southern Command as saying that the country’s forces were ordered to “turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone, close it off.” from the west.”

The newspaper went on to say:

The only case where residents are known to have been beaten, a case that has been widely reported, took place in the house of Pessi Cohen in Kibbutz Be’eri. 14 hostages were kept in the house when the IDF attacked, 13 of them died. In the coming weeks, the IDF is expected to publish the results of its investigation into the incident, which will answer the question of whether Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of Division 99 who was in charge of the operation at Be’eri on October 7, was using the Hannibal process. Did he order the tank to advance even when civilians were lost, as he said in an interview he later gave to the New York Times?

Haaretz’s report comes weeks after a United Nations investigation concluded that the IDF “almost used the Hannibal Directive” on October 7, killing more than a dozen Israeli civilians.




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