Hannibal Directive

Israel has with several notable exceptions adhered to the principle of not negotiating with terrorists and this especially in hostage situations. This policy led to some notable successes, such as Operation Entebbe, but also to loss of human life, as in the Maalot Massacre. In cases where Israeli soldiers were captured and no military solution was found, Israel was forced to negotiate with the captors about an exchange of prisoners. On several occasions, it led to a highly controversial release of hundreds or even thousands of convicted or suspected terrorists in Israeli captivity.

According to Leibovich-Dar, the background to the formulation of 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 authors of the order were the three top officers of the IDF Northern Command, Major General Yossi Peled, the command's operations officer, Colonel Gabi Ashkenazi, and its intelligence officer, Colonel Yaakov Amidror. Leibovich-Dar claimed that the directive name had been generated by an IDF computer random code.[4] The order was claimed to be top 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.[4][5]

Journalist Anshel Pfeffer described the order in The Jerusalem Post 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.[6]

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" and not revised and reinstated until after the abduction of Gilad Shalit in June 2006. Then, the 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 the abduction, but it does not allow them to kill an abducted Israeli soldier. Harel writes, however, 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."[1]

Before 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.[3][7]

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.[3]

According to the article by Leibovich-Dar, 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'.[8]

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".[9]

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".[4]

The Hannibal Directive was supposedly invoked in October 2000 after the Hezbollah capture of three Israeli soldiers in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms area. An Israeli border patrol was attacked by a Hezbollah squad with rockets and automatic fire. Three captive Israeli soldiers were 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 transported in one of them.[4]

In July 2006, two other Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, were captured by Hezbollah in a cross border raid. The Hannibal directive was again supposedly 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 however ran over a powerful explosive charge and was totally destroyed, killing its four crewmen and the mission was aborted.[10][11][12] 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.[13] The bodies of the two soldiers were returned in an exchange with Hezbollah in July 2008.

The Hannibal directive was also supposedly invoked during the abduction of Gilad Shalit. The commission of inquiry on the kidnapping headed by Giora Eiland concluded that the abduction could not be prevented because it took more than an hour from the time Shalit’s tank was hit until Hannibal directive was declared. By that time Shalit was already well inside the Gaza strip.[14] Shalit was released alive in exchange for 1,027 prisoners in October 2011.

During the 2008–2009 Gaza war, the Hannibal directive was again supposedly invoked. An Israeli soldier was shot and injured by a Hamas fighter during a search of a house in one of the neighborhoods of Gaza. 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 by Hamas. According to the IDF spokesman the soldier was killed by terrorist gun fire.[15]

During the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, when the IDF believed that Hadar Goldin had been captured, it was reported the Hannibal Directive was initiated.[16] The IDF carried out a large-scale military operation that included bombing all possible escape routes from Rafah tunnels, an act reported by Ha'aretz to have killed scores of Palestinians and be the "most devastating" execution of the Hannibal Directive.[17][18] Only partial remains were found.[19] An IDF inquiry concluded Goldin probably was killed during the initial battle.[20] In July 2015, the full transcript of the IDF communication system was published, revealing the initiation of the directive.[21] According to an IDF investigation of the incident while the phrase “Hannibal Procedure” was mentioned on the IDF field radios, the procedure was not implemented nor was there indiscriminate fire towards Rafah homes. Hamas claimed 130 Palestinian civilians were killed. The IDF investigation concluded that 41 people were killed, 12 of them Hamas combatants.[22] Asa Kasher revealed that a soldier was killed by his comrades due to a mistaken understanding of the directive.[23]

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.

— Pnina Feldman, mother of Zvi Feldman, missing since the battle of Sultan Yakub in Lebanon, in June 1982[5]

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.

— Mordechai Fink, father of Yossi Fink, whose abduction in 1986 brought about the formulation of the Hannibal Directive.[5]

• Israel Defense Forces Code of Conduct
• Dahiya doctrine

• The IDF Hannibal Protocol Golani Battalion 51 commander briefing his troops on the eve of their entry into Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Video report broadcast on Israel Television Channel 2 News, 16 October 2011.