March
26, 2024
In
Israeli military terminology, the so-called “Hannibal Directive” is the policy
of firing upon one’s own soldiers to avert a prospective captive situation.
There
is a growing amount of evidence and testimony that suggests that on October 7,
the Hannibal Directive was implemented, at least to a certain extent, on
Israelis. What’s more, growing testimonies indicate that this policy was
extended to Israeli civilians in the form of indiscriminate fire from
helicopters and tanks. The recent outstanding Al Jazeera investigation,
“October 7,” addresses this question at considerable length.
Last
week, another testimony involving such acts appeared on Channel 13 and was
repeated a day later on Ynet, in which an armored company commander, Captain
Bar Zonshein, tells of how he fired tank shells at vehicles driving towards
Gaza near Kisufim — about 2 kilometers away from the Gaza perimeter fence.
“We
identified two pickups driving Toyotas, and on them, there was a large number
of people standing in the cabin, and there was a pile of people. I don’t know
whether they were corpses or living people…And I decide to attack these
vehicles,” Zonshein says.
One
must point out that Zonshien’s description of a “pile” of people could either
be military or civilians, but those distinctions apparently did not factor into
his calculations. This is, of course, significant in Israeli terms because the
Hannibal doctrine had hitherto only been limited to soldiers.
The
next part of Zonshein’s testimony, however, offers a revealing insight into his
rationale for attacking the pickup trucks: “Because something in my gut feeling
told me that they could be on them.”
In
other words, Zonshein thought that his fellow soldiers might be among the
captured — which is precisely why he opened fire.
The
interviewer presses him, reaffirming they’re talking about the possibility of
targeting soldiers. “Maybe you would have killed them. They are your soldiers.”
“Right,”
Zonshien replies. “But I decide that this is the right decision, that it’s
better to stop the abduction and that they not be taken.”
The
interviewer then asks whether, in retrospect, he acted correctly.
“I
feel that I acted correctly,” he replies.
Then
the obvious question, and to the point: “Is this the order? A Hannibal order?”
the interviewer urges.
Zonshein
all but confirms it, using heavily suggestive language.
“In
the order itself, a few operational steps need to be taken,” he says. “One
needs to fire at central gathering points and [military] control points, and in
case of identification [of one’s own soldiers], one needs to also do that
thing.”
“That
thing,” of course, is the Hannibal directive.
Zonshein
does not feel morally weighed down about his decision, he explains, because
“today, I know that we didn’t hit them,” although he said earlier that he hit
the first pickup truck.
Zonshein
seems to believe that the Israelis in the truck were not harmed, making vague
references to “things that I prefer not to reveal.”
But
his opaque references are dispelled by his unequivocal judgment that being
taken captive is a fate worse than death.
“It
doesn’t weigh on me because this scene of people being taken by murderers who
hold them captive and under torture — that, I think, is a much worse thought,”
he explains.
It
has yet to be confirmed whether Israeli prisoners have been tortured under
Hamas captivity. As for civilians, the indications so far suggest that their
treatment has been relatively humane, as also indicated by the hostages
themselves. The opposite can be said about Palestinian detainees in Israeli
captivity, whose systematic and widespread torture has been well-documented,
even by mainstream Israeli television.
One
might argue, of course, that the soldier acted on his own personal initiative
and, perhaps, that his actions were based on a general widespread belief within
Israeli society of the supposed horrors of captivity under Hamas. But aside
from the allusions in Zonshein’s testimony that suggest otherwise, the
political rationale for killing potential Israeli captives is fairly clear. In
2006, when Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit was captured, Israel eventually
exchanged him in 2011 for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. This is not something
Israel wants to repeat.
The
reigning notion in the Israeli army seems to be — let’s sacrifice their lives
lest they be used as bargaining chips. And, of course, their way of getting
past the Hannibal Directive’s underlying moral conundrum is to tell themselves
that it is better for them to die than fall into the hands of “human animals.”
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