The Israeli military ordered the Hannibal Directive – a controversial Israeli military policy aimed at preventing the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces at all costs – on October 7, an investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has revealed.
In an article published Sunday, the newspaper, citing testimonies from Israeli soldiers and senior army officers, said that during the unprecedented Hamas attack last October, the Israeli army began making decisions based on limited and unverified information, and gave the order that “no vehicles could return to Gaza.”
“At this stage, the Israeli military was not aware of the scale of the abductions along the Gaza border, but it knew that many people were involved. The significance of this message and the fate of some of those abducted were therefore abundantly clear,” the report said.
On October 7, Hamas captured dozens of Israelis, many of whom remain in captivity or were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, according to the Palestinian armed group. But many of those captured were civilians, not soldiers, to whom the Hannibal directive does not apply.
Hamas attacks have left 1,139 people dead in Israel, while nearly 250 others have been captured, according to Israeli authorities. Separately, more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to an Tel Aviv Tribune tally based on official statistics.
Haaertz said he was not aware of the number of soldiers and civilians affected by the Hannibal military procedure, but added that “cumulative data indicates that many of the kidnapped people were in danger, exposed to Israeli fire, even if they were not the target.”
The report states that the Hannibal Protocol “was used in three army installations infiltrated by Hamas” and “this did not prevent the kidnapping of seven of them (soldiers) or the killing of 15 other observers, as well as 38 other soldiers.”
What is the Hannibal Directive?
The Hannibal Directive, also known as the Hannibal Procedure or Hannibal Protocol, is an Israeli military policy that stipulates the use of maximum force in the event of a soldier’s kidnapping, Yehuda Shaul, a former soldier in the Israeli army, told Tel Aviv Tribune in November last year.
“You will open fire without constraints, in order to prevent the kidnapping,” he said, adding that the use of force is carried out even at the risk of killing a captive soldier.
In addition to shooting at the kidnappers, soldiers can shoot at intersections, roads, highways and other paths through which adversaries can take a kidnapped soldier, Shaul added.
Israel last invoked the Hannibal directive in 2014, during its war on Gaza that year, according to leaked military audio recordings, although the Israeli military has denied using the doctrine.
Dozens of Palestinians were killed in the ensuing Israeli bombings, prompting accusations of war crimes against the Israeli military.
The directive was reportedly revoked in 2016, but it is unclear why it was cancelled. A report by Israel’s state comptroller also recommended that the army abolish the directive due to criticism it has received and the various interpretations it has been given by the military, Haaretz reported.
According to the Haaretz investigation, a senior Israeli military source also confirmed that the Hannibal procedure was “employed on October 7.” The source said post-war investigations would reveal who gave the order.
Meanwhile, an Israeli army spokesman told the newspaper that the army “has begun conducting internal investigations into what happened on October 7 and the period before.”
“The goal of these investigations is to learn and draw lessons that can be used to continue the battle. When these investigations are completed, the results will be presented to the public in full transparency,” the spokesperson said, according to the Israeli newspaper.
