Gaza Division operations and airstrikes in the first hours of October 7 were based on limited information. The first long moments after the Hamas attack was launched were chaotic. Reports were coming in, with their significance not always clear. When their meaning was understood, it was realized that something horrific had taken place.

Source: HAARETZ

Israeli army used Hannibal Directive during October 7 Hamas attack: Report

The directive is a controversial policy of Israel’s military aimed at preventing the capture of its soldiers.

The Israeli army ordered the Hannibal Directive – a controversial Israeli military policy aimed at preventing the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces at any cost – on October 7 last year, an investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has revealed.

• In a report on Sunday, the newspaper, based on testimonies of Israeli soldiers and senior army officers, said that during Hamas’s unprecedented attack last October, the Israeli army started making decisions with limited and unverified information, and issued an order that “not a single vehicle can return to Gaza”.

• “At this point, the [Israeli army] was not aware of the extent of kidnapping along the Gaza border, but it did know that many people were involved. Thus, it was entirely clear what that message meant, and what the fate of some of the kidnapped people would be,” the report said.

On October 7, Hamas captured dozens of Israelis, many of whom are still in captivity or have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza, according to the Palestinian armed group. But many of those captured were civilians and not soldiers, to whom the Hannibal Directive does not apply.

• The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks is estimated to be 1,139, while nearly 250 others were taken as captives, Israeli authorities say. Meanwhile, more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on official statistics.
• While Haaertz said it was not aware how many soldiers and civilians were hit due to the Hannibal military procedure, it added that “the cumulative data indicates that many of the kidnapped people were at risk, exposed to Israeli gunfire, even if they were not the target”.

The report said the Hannibal protocol “was employed at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas” and “this did not prevent the kidnapping of seven of them [soldiers] or the killing of 15 other spotters, 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 being kidnapped, Yehuda Shaul, a former Israeli army soldier, had told Al Jazeera in November of last year.

• “You will open fire without constraints, in order to prevent the abduction,” he said, adding that the use of force is carried out even at the risk of killing a captive soldier.

In addition to firing at the abductors, soldiers can fire at junctions, roads, highways and other pathways opponents may take a kidnapped soldier through, Shaul added.

• Israel last invoked the Hannibal Directive in 2014 during its war on Gaza that year, according to leaked military audio recordings, though the Israeli army denied it had used the doctrine.

Dozens of Palestinians were killed in the Israeli bombardment that followed, sparking accusations of war crimes against the Israeli army.

The directive is believed to have been revoked in 2016, though it is unclear what led to its annulment. A report by Israel’s state comptroller also recommended the army abolish the directive because of the criticism it received as well as because of its various interpretations by those in the army, Haaretz said.

• According to Haaretz’s investigation, a senior Israeli army source also confirmed the Hannibal procedure was “employed on October 7”. The source said post-war investigations would reveal who gave the order.
• Meanwhile, an Israeli army spokesperson told the newspaper that the army “has begun conducting internal investigations of what transpired on October 7 and the preceding period”.
• “The aim of these investigations is to learn and to draw lessons which could be used in continuing the battle. When these investigations are concluded, the results will be presented to the public with transparency,” the spokesperson said, according to the Israeli newspaper.

Source: Al Jazeera

IDF officers invoked defunct ‘Hannibal Protocol’ during Oct. 7 fighting – report

Haaretz alleges that senior officers in Gaza Division ordered soldiers to use whatever means necessary to prevent abductions, even if it posed risk to life.

During the first hours of the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught in southern Israel, IDF troops on the ground were instructed to prevent the kidnapping of soldiers into Gaza by whatever means necessary, as senior officers in the Gaza Division allegedly implemented the controversial “Hannibal Protocol,” according to newly reported testimonies of soldiers and officers.

The Haaretz daily newspaper reported on Sunday that it had obtained documents and collected testimonies from troops who partook in the fighting on October 7. The data, Haaretz said, collectively pointed toward the use of the Hannibal Protocol, a military order officially repealed in 2016 that granted troops broad permission to do whatever necessary to prevent the kidnapping of a fellow soldier, including potentially endangering their life.

When the first Hamas terrorists breached the border fence between Israel and Gaza in the early hours of Saturday, October 7, the IDF was caught completely unaware and thus struggled to mount a response during the first few hours of the invasion.

• At 7:18 a.m., less than an hour after the mass terror onslaught had begun, an IDF soldier monitoring surveillance cameras reported an attempted kidnapping of a soldier stationed at the Erez Crossing, which borders northern Gaza.

The response from command was an order for “Hannibal at Erez,” Haaretz alleged, and an instruction to dispatch an attack drone. Half an hour later, a second abduction was reported and the same order was said to have been issued.

Similar orders were also given to soldiers operating inside the Re’im Camp and Nahal Oz post, and according to testimonies, a Hermes 450 drone attacked the Re’im base once Shaldag commandos were already there fighting to regain control from the terrorists.

It was not confirmed whether any Israeli soldiers had been harmed as a result of the strike.

• It was unclear from the report whether the supposed order was implemented at Nahal Oz, as seven surveillance soldiers were nevertheless kidnapped from the base, and 53 soldiers were killed.

In November 2023, a separate Haaretz report alleged that a small number of civilians may have been injured by fire from a military chopper as they were fleeing the Supernova music festival, held in the fields of Kibbutz Re’im. The report was denied by the police, however, and resulted in false claims from the Palestinian Authority that Israel had “allowed the occupation police and army to kill” all of the 364 partygoers mowed down by terrorists at the music festival.

According to Sunday’s report, the order to implement Hannibal-esque policies during the hours of fighting on October 7 was not limited to military bases but extended to civilians as well.

• Shortly before 11:30 a.m., an order was issued in which soldiers were told that “not a single vehicle could return to Gaza” from inside Israel, for fear that it would be transporting kidnapped individuals.

An unnamed source from the IDF’s Southern Command confirmed to Haaretz that the order was issued because “everyone knew by then that such vehicles could be carrying kidnapped civilians or soldiers.”

The source added that while there were no instances in which a vehicle carrying kidnapped Israelis was knowingly attacked, “you couldn’t really know if there were any such people in a vehicle.”

• “I can’t say there was any clear instruction, but everyone knew what it meant to not let any vehicles return to Gaza,” the source said.

• In one case, an Israeli Air Force probe determined that Efrat Katz, 68, was likely killed by helicopter fire during an attempt by Hamas terrorists to take the Kibbutz Nir Oz resident hostage on October 7.

• According to the investigation, amid battles that took place in southern Israel on October 7, an IAF helicopter opened fire on a car with several terrorists in it. It was later revealed, based on eyewitnesses, videos from the helicopter, and surveillance camera footage, that the vehicle also had Israeli hostages in it.

In total, some 1,200 people were massacred across southern Israel on October 7, and 251 were seized as hostages, the majority of them civilians.

• Toward the evening, as the IDF fought to regain control of the Gaza border communities, Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of the IDF’s 99th Division, ordered a tank to fire on a home in Kibbutz Be’eri, where Hamas terrorists were holding 14 Israelis hostage.

• The tank fired two shells toward the house. Of the 14 who had been held hostage, 13 were killed in the intense firefight between Israeli troops and the Hamas terrorists. It remains unclear how many of the 13 had been harmed by the tank fire, although at least one of them, 68-year-old Adi Dagan, was said to have been killed by shrapnel.

In the coming weeks, the IDF is due to present the findings of an investigation into the incident.

• The Hannibal Protocol was canceled by then-IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot in 2016, who said that the military would instead design a series of new orders, better tailored to the various situations that soldiers may find themselves in.

While the decades-old protocol intended to allow troops to use potentially massive amounts of force to prevent soldiers from falling into enemy hands, some officers understood it to mean a soldier should deliberately be killed if it meant preventing their abduction.

Source: TOI