A recent ABC report on the Israeli military’s use of the infamous Hannibal Directive against its own citizens on October 7 has helped to further unravel Israeli media reports which have been confirming the details as to who killed who on that day.
What it also brought to attention, is the fact that Israel has been killing its own captives since the first day of the war, not just after they were held as prisoners in Gaza.
While Israel has killed dozens of its citizens who were being held captive in Gaza, through their indiscriminate bombing campaign against civilian infrastructure in the besieged coastal enclave, little attention is turned to the military doctrine that set in motion such a strategy and what it means.
Although the Israeli air force has been continuously killing Israeli captives in Gaza since the early months of the war, by launching missile strikes that have annihilated or rendered unsafe, most of the territory’s infrastructure.
In May, a United Nations Development Program assessment concluded that in order to rebuild Gaza’s destroyed homes, it would take a minimum of 16 years and that time frame could range up to 80 years depending upon what materials will be allowed, who could participate and at what rate.
In July, the UN’s Environment Program said that just clearing the debris of what was then 40,000 tons of war rubble would take 15 years alone.
It suffices to say that the evidence in front of us confirms that Israel has not in any way conducted a targeted military campaign, instead opting to indiscriminately bombard the entire territory and destroy every single standing building in a buffer zone they seek to create inside Gaza. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Israeli captives who were being held in buildings that the Israeli air force attacked were killed.
However, this story didn’t end up picking up the attention of the corporate media until December. Some 70 days into the war three Israeli captives managed to escape an area where they were being held, emerging together and holding up a makeshift white flag. Despite this, they were all shot dead by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers who had been used to shooting anything that moves in Gaza.
Yet, the indiscriminate bombings, failed commando raids on tunnels, and the shooting dead of their captives was not where the killing of their own citizens began. According to all the available evidence, which Israel has repeatedly tried to hide, Israel has been indiscriminately firing upon and slaughtering its own people since October 7 itself.
The recent ABC piece cites a bomb-shell Haaretz article that confirmed the Hannibal Directive was triggered on October 7, citing Israeli military sources to back up the allegation. This, as Israel’s Yediot Aharonot news also reported on the indiscriminate fire from helicopters, drones and tanks.
What the recent piece in ABC does, is that as a mainstream media outlet, it does a great job at compiling the evidence released from the Israeli side. It cites for instance, Ronen Bergman’s investigative article that found around 70 vehicles that were seen as potentially heading to Gaza were destroyed by Israeli tank and helicopter fire, killing everyone inside.
The report does note that Bergman’s article makes it clear that there are still question marks however, as he says: “It is not clear at this point how many of the abductees were killed due to the activation of this (Hannibal) order on October 7”.
The ABC report also cites two cases where survivors of Israeli strikes against their fellow citizens had spoken out on the issue. In the first case, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz testified to being fired upon by an Israeli military helicopter as Hamas fighters attempted to take her and others captive into Gaza on an electric wagon.
The case of Kibbutz Be’eri was also used, where the report uses testimony of an Israeli survivor and a relative of Israelis who were killed there, to debunk the claims of an Israeli military internal investigation that concluded tank shells fired there did not kill anyone other than Hamas fighters.
In Kibbutz Be’eri, where 101 non-combatants were said to have been killed, Yasmin Porat, a survivor who was taken captive by Hamas fighters, not only mentioned tank shelling but also spoke of Israeli soldiers starting a “very, very heavy crossfire” by shooting into a building and killing 5 or 6 Israelis.
It is also clear from all the reporting on the issue that has been published in Israeli media outlets, that the facts have been limited due to a military censor that is imposed on the news websites and channels.
Unless we have direct testimony from survivors, trusting the internal investigations of the Israeli military, who we now know triggered the Hannibal Directive against their own civilians and soldiers, would be the only other way to determine what exactly happened that day.
However, as was pointed out in the ABC piece, the Israeli investigation has been directly contradicted by eyewitness accounts. In addition to this, the physical evidence available from that day also indicates that the Israeli military killed many more of its citizens than it lets on.
When investigative articles do surface in the Israeli media, citing military sources and producing evidence for certain aspects of what truly transpired that day, they don’t ever place all of that information in one place and so it is then up to journalists to piece together the wider picture.
Saying all of this and also conceding that there is no way to conclude a specific figure range of how many of the 1,139 Israelis were actually killed by their own military and security forces that day, it is clear that many who were taken captive by Palestinian fighters were killed by the Israeli army itself.
Therefore, it is apparent that since October 7, Israel has been killing its own captives and this is clearly down to its trigger-happy and chaotic rules of engagement.
–Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
