Hannibal Directive



The Hannibal Directive (נוהל חניבעל), also translated as Hannibal Procedure or Hannibal Protocol, is the name of a controversial procedure used by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. According to one version, it says that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces." It was introduced in 1986, after a number of abductions of IDF soldiers in Lebanon and subsequent controversial prisoner exchanges. The full text of the directive was never published, and until 2003, Israeli military censorship forbade any discussion of the subject in the press. The directive has been changed several times, and in 2016 Gadi Eizenkot ordered the formal revocation of the standing directive and the reformulation of the protocol.

Two versions of the Hannibal Directive may have existed simultaneously at times: a written version, accessible only to the upper echelon of the IDF, and an "oral law" version for division commanders and lower levels. In the latter version, "by all means" was often interpreted literally, as in "an IDF soldier was 'better dead than abducted'". In 2011, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz stated the directive does not permit killing IDF soldiers to prevent abduction.

In case of the abduction of Gilad Shalit, invocation of the Hannibal Directive occurred too late to have any influence on the course of events.

Israeli newspapers have pointed out that during the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel the IDF was issued orders echoing the wording of the Hannibal Directive. The IDF was ordered to prevent "at all costs" the abduction of Israeli civilians or soldiers, possibly leading to the death of a large number of Israeli hostages.

Background
Israel has, with several notable exceptions, adhered to the principle of not negotiating with those it considers terrorists, especially in hostage situations. This policy led to some notable successes, such as Operation Entebbe, but also to loss of human life, e.g. the Maalot Massacre. In cases where Israeli soldiers were captured and no military solution was found, Israel was forced to negotiate with the captors for an exchange of prisoners. Large parts of the Israeli public would not accept abandoning captured soldiers to their fate.

In 1970, a member of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) entered Israel from Lebanon and abducted a security guard in the northernmost Israeli town of Metula. He did this in order to secure a swap of the guard for a senior member of Fatah, jailed in Israel. In 1979, Israel agreed to exchange an Israeli POW held by Palestinians for 76 convicted Palestinian militants in Israeli jails.

After the 1982 Lebanon War, Palestinian forces imprisoned nine IDF soldiers as POWs. Six were held by Fatah (the main faction of the PLO) and three by the pro-Syrian PFLP-GC. In 1983, Israel agreed to free 4,700 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners, including several high ranking PLO officers, for the six IDF soldiers held captive by Fatah. The following year Israel agreed to free another 1,150 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. Many were allowed to remain in Israeli controlled territory.

The Hannibal Directive
According to Haaretz reporter Leibovich-Dar, the motivation for the directive was the capture of two Israeli soldiers during a Hezbollah ambush in South Lebanon in June 1986. Both soldiers presumably died during the attack, and their bodies were returned to Israel in an exchange with Hezbollah in 1996. The directive developers were three top officers of the IDF Northern Command: Major General Yossi Peled, the command's operations officer; Colonel Gabi Ashkenazi; and the intelligence officer, Colonel Yaakov Amidror. The order was secret, and its existence was denied by Israeli military authorities.

The exact wording of the directive was not known, though Leibovich-Dar claimed that it had been updated several times over the years. Anshel Pfeffer, writing in The Jerusalem Post, described the order in 2006 as the "rumored" standard procedure in the eventuality of a kidnap attempt: "soldiers are told, though never officially" the content of this order.

Maariv quoted a version of the directive apparently applicable in 2014: "A. During a kidnapping, the main task becomes to rescue our soldiers from the abductors, even at the cost of harming or injuring our soldiers.

B. If the abductors and the kidnapped are identified and the calls are not heeded, a firearm must be fired in order to bring the kidnappers to the ground, or arrest them.

D.(sic) If the vehicle or the hijackers do not stop, they should be fired at individually, intentionally, in order to hit the hijackers, even if it means harming our soldiers. (This section was accompanied by an asterisk comment emphasizing: "In any case, everything should be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape").

Apparently, the Hannibal Directive existed in several versions at that time. It had been amended by the IDF General Staff in October 2013, but neither the corresponding orders at the IDF Southern Command, nor the one at the Gaza Division had been similarly updated by July 2014. The three different, simultaneously current, versions of the directive could therefore be interpreted in different ways, especially on the sensitive question of the value of a soldier's life.

Israeli officials insisted that the directive's name was a random computer-generated designation, however, Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, is said to have preferred suicide by poison rather than being taken prisoner by his Roman enemies.

According to statements by several Israeli officials, the aim of the directive is to prevent the capture of an IDF soldier by enemy forces, even by risking the soldier's life or the lives of scores of non-Israeli civilians. Israeli spokespersons claim that IDF forces are forbidden to attempt to kill a captured soldier, rather than having him captured. Many testimonies from IDF soldiers and other sources contradict this claim and suggest that the IDF in practice adheres to the principle that a dead soldier is better than a captive soldier.

According to the directive, once it had been declared by a field officer, Israeli forces were to open fire on enemy forces carrying away an IDF prisoner. Vehicles suspected of removing such a prisoner from the battlefield could thus be attacked, even at the risk of harming, or even killing, the abductee himself. According to some interpretations, this includes even firing missiles from attack helicopters or firing tank shells at suspected escaping vehicles.

Amos Harel of Haaretz wrote in November 2011 that the Hannibal Directive was suspended for a time "due to opposition from the public and reservist soldiers" but was revised and reinstated by IDF Chief-of-Staff Benny Gantz after the abduction of Gilad Shalit in June 2006. The revised order stated that IDF commanders may take whatever action is necessary, even at the risk of endangering the life of an abducted soldier, to foil an abduction, but it does not allow them to kill an abducted Israeli soldier. The post-2006 version gave local field commanders the right to invoke Hannibal and take action, without waiting for superior officers' confirmation.

Former head of Israeli military intelligence (1974–1978) Shlomo Gazit criticised the fact that a low level officer ("a corporal") could invoke the Hannibal Directive, with such potentially far reaching consequences. The invocation of the Hannibal Directive in the 2006 Hezbollah cross-border raid had far-reaching consequences. An IDF tank sent in pursuit of the abductors attacked, killing its crew. Attempts to rescue the bodies of the tank crew led to further IDF losses. By the time the Israeli government convened to decide how to respond to the attack, Israel - according to Gazit - "was already at war".

The Hannibal Directive was officially revoked by the military in 2016. The directive was replaced by three separate directives in January 2017. They were named "True Test", "Tourniquet" and "Guardian of life" and dealt with abductions in the West Bank and outside Israel in peace time and a general directive for war time. Very little is known about the content of these directives or the eventual differences between them. One general difference between the new and the previous Hannibal directive is that now it is clearly stated that, in case of an attempted abduction, soldiers should fire at the abductors "while avoiding hitting the captive."

Controversy within the IDF
Dr. Avner Shiftan, an army physician with the rank of major, came across the Hannibal directive while on reserve duty in South Lebanon in 1999. In army briefings he "became aware of a procedure ordering soldiers to kill any IDF soldier if he should be taken captive by Hezbollah. This procedure struck me as being illegal and not consistent with the moral code of the IDF. I understood that it was not a local procedure but originated in the General Staff, and had the feeling that a direct approach to the army authorities would be of no avail, but would end in a cover-up."

He contacted Asa Kasher, the Israeli philosopher noted for his authorship of Israel Defense Forces' Code of Conduct, who "found it difficult to believe that such an order exists" since this "is wrong ethically, legally and morally". He doubted that "there is anyone in the army" believing that 'better a dead soldier than an abducted soldier'. Haaretz article about Dr. Shiftan's experience was the first to be published in an Israeli newspaper.

In contrast to the view of Kasher, the IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz said in an interview with Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth in 1999: "In certain senses, with all the pain that saying this entails, an abducted soldier, in contrast to a soldier who has been killed, is a national problem." Asked whether he was referring to cases like Ron Arad (an Air Force navigator captured in 1986) and Nachshon Wachsman (an abducted soldier killed in 1994 in a failed rescue attempt), he replied "definitely, and not only".

According to Prof. Emanuel Gross, from the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa, "Orders like that have to go through the filter of the Military Advocate General's Office, and if they were not involved that is very grave", he said. "The reason is that an order that knowingly permits the death of soldiers to be brought about, even if the intentions were different, carries a black flag and is a flagrantly illegal order that undermines the most central values of our social norms".

Harel writes that a kind of "Oral Law" has developed inside IDF, which is supported by many commanders, even at brigade and division level. It goes further than the official order, including the use of tank shells or air strikes. "A dangerous, unofficial interpretation of the protocol has been created," a senior officer told Haaretz. "Intentionally targeting a vehicle in order to kill the abductee is a completely illegal command. The army's senior command must make this clear to officers."

In anticipation of the Gaza War in 2009, Lt. Col. Shuki Ribak, the commander of the Golani Brigade's 51st battalion instructed his soldiers to avoid kidnapping at any cost and even made clear that he expected his soldiers to commit suicide rather than being abducted:

"[N]o soldier in Battalion 51 will be kidnapped at any price. At any price. Under any condition. Even if it means that he blows himself with his own grenade together with those trying to capture him. Also even if it means that now his unit has to fire a barrage at the car that they are trying to take him away in."

After a recording of Ribak's instructions was distributed by an anonymous source, the IDF reiterated its denial of having a policy of intentionally killing captured soldiers.

Shebaa farms (2000)
The Hannibal Directive was invoked in October 2000 after the Hezbollah capture of three Israeli soldiers in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms (Har Dov) area. An Israeli border patrol was attacked by a Hezbollah squad with rockets and automatic fire. St.-Sgt. Adi Avitan, St.-Sgt. Benyamin Avraham and St.-Sgt. Omar Sawaid were captured and brought over the ceasefire line into Lebanon by their captors. When the abduction was discovered, the Northern Command ordered a "Hannibal situation". Israeli attack helicopters fired at 26 moving vehicles in the area since they assumed that the abducted soldiers were transported in one of them. Yossi Rephaeloff, the commanding officer who invoked the Hannibal procedure, was asked if it did not occur to him that by firing at the cars he might also kill the abducted soldiers. He answered that when he saw the jeep, he realized that they were no longer alive.

Kerem Shalom crossing (2006)
Tank gunner Cpl. Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas in a cross-border raid from Gaza 25 June 2006. Two IDF soldiers were killed in the attack and another two were wounded. Shalit was held for five years, before being exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, which was the highest number released for a single Israeli prisoner. According to the Israeli commission of inquiry, headed by Giora Eiland, the Hannibal directive was declared more than an hour after the capture. By that time, Shalit and his captors were already well inside the Gaza strip. The declaration of Hannibal therefore had few practical consequences.

Ayta ash-Shaab (2006)
On 12 July 2006, two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, were captured by Hezbollah in an ambush, in which three other soldiers were killed. The Hannibal directive was invoked and a force consisting of tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers was sent across the border to capture a Hezbollah post and block the exit routes out of the town of Ayta ash-Sha’b. A Merkava II main battle tank ran over a powerful explosive charge and was totally destroyed and its four crew killed. The rescue mission was therefore aborted. An eighth IDF soldier was killed trying to retrieve the bodies of the tank crew. The Hannibal directive triggered instant aerial surveillance and airstrikes inside Lebanon to limit Hezbollah's ability to move the soldiers it had seized. "If we had found them, we would have hit them, even if it meant killing the soldiers," a senior Israeli official said. The bodies of the two soldiers were returned in an exchange with Hezbollah in July 2008.

Gaza (2008–09)
During the 2008–2009 Gaza war, an unidentified Israeli soldier was shot and injured by a Hamas fighter during a search of a house in one of the neighbourhoods of Gaza. The Hannibal directive was declared. The wounded soldiers' comrades evacuated the house due to fears that it was booby-trapped. According to testimony by soldiers who took part in the incident the house was then shelled to prevent the wounded soldier from being captured alive by Hamas. According to the IDF spokesman, however, the soldier was already dead, killed by terrorist gun fire.

Erez crossing (2009)
In 2009, Israeli civilian Yakir Ben-Melech was shot dead by Israeli security guards while trying to enter the Gaza Strip from Israel, by jumping the fence at the Erez crossing. He was a mental patient of Yehuda Abarbanel Mental Health Center, who, according to family members, wanted to contact Hamas, to secure the release of Israeli captive Gilad Shalit. According to Shlomo Saban, director of the Erez crossing, several warning shots have been fired, after which the man was shot in the leg, an injury that has caused extensive loss of blood and eventually led to his death.

Reportedly, the Hannibal Directive was declared when Ben-Melech tried to jump the fence and he was shot, not by IDF soldiers but by members of a private security firm, responsible for security at the Erez gate. Former Chief of Staff of the Southern Command, Brig.-Gen. Zvika Fogel said in an interview with Israeli radio: "We can't afford now any soul mate of Gilad Shalit".

Rafah (2014)
During the 2014 Gaza War, the third major offensive launched by Israel in Gaza since 2008, IDF Givati Brigade Lieutenant Hadar Goldin was captured by Hamas militants after a brief skirmish on August 1, despite the announcement of a 72-hour ceasefire agreement earlier that day. Forensic Architecture, investigating for Amnesty International in 2015, concluded that Israel then initiated the Hannibal Directive, ultimately resulting in carnage dubbed "Black Friday." The IDF carried out air and ground attacks on residential areas of Rafah during the Hannibal Directive attempt to prevent capture of Lt. Goldin. Amnesty and Forensic Architecture concluded that Israel's indiscriminate violence against all human life amounted to war crimes. Their report, along with the United Nations' investigation, the United Nations' Gaza Inquiry investigation alleged that war crimes were committed by both Israel and armed Palestinian groups, presumably Hamas. The massive Israeli bombardment killed between 135 and 200 Palestinian civilians, including 75 children, in the three hours following the suspected capture of the one Israeli soldier. Haaretz reported this to be the "most devastating" use of the Hannibal Directive to date.

In December 2014, audio recordings from the IDF's communication system were obtained by Ynet. This evidence, in addition to the July 2015 release of full transcripts from the IDF's communication system, reveal the initiation of the Hannibal Directive. However, an IDF investigation denied that the "Hannibal Procedure" was implemented, despite admitting to using the phrase on IDF field radios. The IDF investigation concluded that 41 people were killed, 12 of them Hamas combatants. Asa Kasher, a winner of the Israel Prize and the author of the IDF's ethical code, disagreed with the IDF's report while speaking at a conference of the Tzohar Zionist rabbinical organization. Kasher stated that a soldier had been killed during the summer of 2014 by his comrades due to a mistaken understanding of the directive; Kasher intimated that the soldier was Lt. Goldin.

Testimonies from IDF soldiers involved in the attack provided further evidence contrary to the official IDF story. An Israeli army infantry officer described the events of August 1 to Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence as follows: "The minute 'Hannibal Directive' is declared on the radio, there are consequences. There's a fire procedure called the 'Hannibal fire procedure' – you fire at every suspicious place that merges with a central route. You don't spare any means." He reported that the initial fire lasted three hours. An artillery soldier said his battery was "firing at a maximum fire rate" into inhabited areas. According to the Givati Brigade inquiry, more than 2,000 bombs, missiles and shells were fired in Rafah on 1 August 2014, including 1,000 in the three hours following the capture.

A second case occurred in a clash between an IDF unit and Hamas forces on July 25, 2014. After St.-Sgt. Guy Levy went missing, the Hannibal procedure was reportedly enacted. It is unknown whether Levy was captured dead or alive, and killed later by IDF fire. According to the IDF, Levy was killed by a Hamas anti-tank missile and his body seized by Hamas.

Shuja'iyya (2014)
During the Battle of Shuja'iyya, on July 20, 2014, Hamas fired an anti-tank missile at an IDF armored personnel carrier carrying seven soldiers, including St.-Sgt. Oron Shaul.

Hamas claimed to have captured an IDF soldier named "Aron Shaul", corroborating its claim with the soldier's "photo ID and credentials". The IDF later stated that the body of Oron Shaul had not been identified among the dead found inside the vehicle. It is unclear if Shaul was captured alive or dead or whether the Hannibal Directive was invoked or not.

Qalandia Camp (2016)
Two members of the Oketz Unit (Special Forces) soldiers entered Qalandiya Refugee Camp by mistake and were confronted by a Palestinan crowd, which began throwing stones and molotov cocktails. The burning jeep was abandoned and the two soldiers got separated in the alleys of the camp. One of them retained his mobile phone, contacted IDF command and was picked up by IDF forces. The second soldier hid in a yard, waiting to be rescued. Meanwhile "Hannibal" was declared and the camp was surrounded by large numbers of IDF forces. After less than an hour the second soldier was found unharmed. So, none of the IDF soldiers were ever captured by Palestinians. One Palestinian was killed in the clashes, while 10 Palestinians and five Israeli soldiers were wounded.

The incident has been described as the last incident where the Hannibal directive was officially declared.

Claimed use of the Hannibal Directive on 7th October 2023
Some commentators have argued that the Hannibal directive, previously understood to generally apply to situations involving IDF soldiers, enemy combatants and possibly non-Israeli civilians (with the goal of avoiding a repetition of the Ahmad Jibril, Samir Kuntar and Gilad Shalit prisoner exchanges thought as unfavorable for Israel), but not to Israeli civilians, was implemented by the IDF on a mass scale on 7 October 2023 when the IDF fired on Israeli civilian hostages while they were being driven by Hamas militants into Gaza. This would be the first time in the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that a Palestinian kidnapping operation and subsequent IDF Hannibal reaction included Israeli civilians. An investigation by Haaretz in July 2024 concluded that the directive had been used on several occasions on that day, starting with a 7:18 a.m. order for the situation at Erez border crossing.

Intitial claims
On 5 December 2023, Israeli hostages released by Hamas met with Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet and claimed that, during the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel they were deliberately attacked by Israeli helicopters on their way into Gaza, and were shelled constantly by the Israeli military while they were there.

In an interview with Israel's Haaretz weekly Hebrew pod, Lieut. Col. Nof Erez explained that the IDF was more or less wiped out on the ground on the Gaza border. There was no one that helicopter or drone pilots could communicate with. This made the identification of persons on the ground very difficult. According to Erez, "the Hannibal [Protocol], for which we have been conducting drills over the past 20 years, relates to the case a single vehicle containing hostages: you know which part of the fence it comes through, what side of the road it would move to and even which road... What we saw here was a "mass Hannibal". There were many openings in the fence. Thousands of people in many different vehicles, both with hostages and without hostages".

The Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 reported on 16 December that IDF forces had shot at a tractor carrying hostages to Gaza, killing one hostage and injuring others. According to Kibbutz Be'eri survivors Hadas Dagan and Yasmin Porat, an Israeli tank fired two shells at a house that was known to hold over a dozen hostages, including 12-year-old twins; only one hostage survived. In January 2024, a Haaretz editorial asked the IDF to disclose whether the Hannibal Directive was used during the Be'eri massacre.

IDF statements
On 18 December the IDF confirmed that Israeli combatants “fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7," but added that "beyond the operational investigations of the events, it would not be morally sound to investigate these incidents due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities due to the challenging situations the soldiers were in at the time." In January, an investigation by Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth concluded that the IDF had in practice applied the Hannibal Directive from noon of October 7, ordering all combat units to stop "at all costs" any attempt by Hamas terrorists to return to Gaza with hostages. According to Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli soldiers inspected around 70 vehicles on the roads leading to Gaza that had been hit by a helicopter, tank or UAV, killing all occupants in at least some cases.

Further accusations and interviews
Also in January, Middle East Monitor reported that Noam Dan, cousin of hostage Ofer Calderon, launched an accusation against the Israeli Prime Minister, claiming that captives in Gaza are being deliberately sacrificed as part of a strategy to prolong [Netanyahu's] political tenure. Dan argued that this forms part of a wider "Hannibal Directive", stating, "My government is annihilating them."

According to MondoWeiss, on 28 March 2024 IDF Captain Bar Zonshein gave an interview in which he recounted firing tank shells on vehicles on October 7, although he did not know if there were Israeli combatants alive or dead in them. Pressed on whether it was the right decision if there were Israeli soldiers killed as a result, he said "I decided that this is the right decision, that it's better to stop the abduction and that they not be taken," he told Israeli media outlets.

Israeli inquiry
On 5 April an inquiry into the events around the kidnapping of Efrat Katz, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities targeted by the attack, examined a variety of video evidence and testimony of witnesses. It said the evidence showed that one of the helicopter gunships fired at a vehicle in which gunmen were travelling and which the evidence also suggested had hostages in it. "As a result of the fire, most of the terrorists manning the vehicle were killed, and most likely, Efrat Katz ... was killed as well," it said in a statement. It said the investigation showed that the hostages could not be distinguished by existing surveillance systems. "The commander of the air force did not find fault in the operation by the helicopter crew, who operated in compliance with the orders in a complex reality of war," it said.

UN Commission report
A report by a UN Commission published in June 2024 found that the Israel Security Forces applied the Hannibal Directive in several locations, killing at least 14 Israeli civilians.

Reactions
"No mother would want her son to be killed rather than be taken prisoner... You prefer to wait until he returns, even if it goes on for very many years."

"The nightmare we went through for 10 years is indescribable, but despite that, I would not agree to have the buddies of an abducted soldier try to save him even at the price of killing him. As long as there is life there is hope. I am also positive that the soldiers would refuse to obey the order and would not kill an Israeli soldier. What about the effect of the order on the soldiers' morale? A soldier who is taken prisoner has to know that everything will be done to rescue him without killing him."

Military evaluation by opponents
In October 2019 the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, Major-General Qasem Soleimani, gave an interview to Iranian state television on the 2006 Lebanon War. In it he stressed that the use of the Hannibal Directive by the IDF made organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah upgrade their operational planning and make their hostage-taking operations more meticulous, in order to avoid getting their hostages killed by Israeli fire. Describing the 2006 Hezbollah cross-border raid, Soleimani said:

"The [Hezbollah] fighters had to cross the border, reach the long-watched Israeli outpost, and take the prisoners. Thus, each operation had to be done so carefully that the Israeli soldiers inside the tanks were not killed. [...] The operation had to be carried out very quickly: not in 15 or 30 minutes, but in a very few minutes or even seconds. They had to move the captured Israeli soldiers very quickly to a safe place before the enemy could reach them (and this is always very dangerous, because the enemy in such cases uses the so-called Hannibal Protocol, i.e. opens fire on its own captured soldiers and Resistance fighters, because he prefers to have dead Israeli soldiers than prisoners that he will later be forced to exchange for imprisoned Resistance fighters). Usually, the enemy is within a few minutes of the point of operation – I mean the ground force, since for the air force it could of course take much less time and the enemy would arrive very quickly. So it had to be designed very precisely."