Conor here: Following the unraveling of the mass rape claims, it now looks like the fact that Israel killed many of its own citizens on Oct. 7 is beginning to leak out into the mainstream media.
Of course, many have pointed this out for months and were vilified as antisemitic conspiracy theorists for doing so.
Nine months later, Haaretz confirms what was reported by @intifada (https://t.co/MXsCvqZTJz) and then @TheGrayzoneNews (https://t.co/A9J1uRNvX7) back in October: Israel invoked the Hannibal Directive and killed its own citizens on Oct. 7th.
The handful of independent… https://t.co/3l5P6YOfZ7
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) July 7, 2024
Some even lost their jobs:
Five months ago, I laid out, in detail, evidence that Israel was intentionally killing its own citizens — aka the Hannibal Directive. In the clip below, I strenuosity advocated for Israeli hostages who reportedly were being killed by Israel. I was later fired after being accused… https://t.co/QPjONXksuO pic.twitter.com/zoVLI6r9a3
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) July 7, 2024
The Washington Post ran a whole hit piece on Electronic Intifada and others like The Grayzone back in January. While it’s a positive to see Haaretz finally report on the Hannibal Directive, it’s about seven months too late. And one wonders how the WaPo hit piece was used to suppress the reach of “conspiracy theories.” As Electronic Intifada pointed out at the time:
The Washington Post’s attack on The Electronic Intifada indicates the frustration Israel and its cheerleaders in the US media feel because they have been unsuccessful in imposing Israel’s version of events.
With First Amendment protections for free speech still strong in the United States, direct censorship of publications is not an option.
So there has emerged a nexus among governments, think tanks funded by governments and arms manufacturers, and big tech companies aiming to control what we can all say online.
The Washington Post article is therefore likely to be used by Israel lobby groups to pressure big tech firms to suppress the reach of journalists who challenge Israel’s lies, under the banner of fighting supposed “disinformation.”
Will the State Department still pretend it knows nothing?
INCREDIBLE: In response to questioning by @samhusseini about Israel’s “Hannibal Directive” — particularly regarding its use on Oct 7 and/or against US citizens — Miller claims that he’s NEVER HEARD OF IT!
Miller: “I am not familiar in any way with either that supposed directive… pic.twitter.com/lndfHR0bkB
— Decensored News (@decensorednews) June 25, 2024
Will WaPo issue an apology? That’s unfortunately probably about as likely as news of the Hannibal Directive in Haaretz having any effect on Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza. As of the time of this post Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu continues to insist that any Gaza ceasefire deal must allow Israel to resume fighting until its “objectives” are met.
By Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported Sunday that Israel’s military repeatedly employed a protocol known as the “Hannibal Directive” during the October 7 Hamas-led attack in an attempt to prevent the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers—even if it meant putting the lives of army captives and civilians at risk.
Haaretz found based on documents and interviews with soldiers and senior Israeli officers that Hannibal—an operational order developed in 1986 that “directs the use of force to prevent soldiers being taken into captivity” by enemy militants—was used “at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well.”
During the first hours of the Hamas-led attack, according to Haaretz, Israeli soldiers were given an order: “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza.”
“At this point, the IDF was not aware of the extent of kidnapping along the Gaza border, but it did know that many people were involved,” the newspaper continued. “Thus, it was entirely clear what that message meant, and what the fate of some of the kidnapped people would be.”
The full text of the Hannibal Directive has never been published. But according to a Haaretz story about the directive from more than two decades ago, part of it states that “during an abduction, the major mission is to rescue our soldiers from the abductors even at the price of harming or wounding our soldiers.”
“Light-arms fire is to be used in order to bring the abductors to the ground or to stop them,” it adds. “If the vehicle or the abductors do not stop, single-shot (sniper) fire should be aimed at them, deliberately, in order to hit the abductors, even if this means hitting our soldiers. In any event, everything will be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape.”
Israeli authorities have acknowledged “multiple incidents of our forces firing on our forces” on October 7. In April, Israel’s military said that one of the hostages taken by Hamas militants 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, has declined to say whether Hannibal was used during the Hamas-led attack.
Haaretz stressed Sunday that it “does not know whether or how many civilians and soldiers were hit due to these procedures, but 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 first of the known uses of the Hannibal Directive on October 7 came “when an observation post at the Yiftah outpost reported that someone had been kidnapped at the Erez border crossing, adjacent to the IDF’s liaison office,” Haaretz reported.
“‘Hannibal at Erez’ came the command from divisional headquarters, ‘dispatch a Zik.’ The Zik is an unmanned assault drone, and the meaning of this command was clear,” the newspaper found.
The directive was employed at least two additional times during the attack, according to Haaretz, which cited one unnamed source in Israel’s Southern Command as saying that the country’s forces were instructed to “turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone, closing it off toward the west.”
The newspaper continued:
One case in which it is known that civilians were hit, a case that received wide coverage, took place in the house of Pessi Cohen at Kibbutz Be’eri. Fourteen hostages were held in the house as the IDF attacked it, with 13 of them killed. In the coming weeks, the IDF is expected to publish the results of its investigation of the incident, which will answer the question of whether Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of Division 99 who was in charge of operations in Be’eri on October 7, was employing the Hannibal procedure. Did he order the tank to move ahead even at the cost of civilian casualties, as he stated in an interview he gave later to The New York Times?
Haaretz’s reporting comes weeks after a United Nations investigation concluded that the IDF “had likely applied the Hannibal Directive” on October 7, killing more than a dozen Israeli civilians.
