2023-12-19 18:06:18
Palestinian Hamas released a video on Monday, December 18 showing three elderly Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip and calling on Israel to do what is necessary to obtain their release. Images which come a few days after the outcry caused by the death of three Israeli hostages, carrying a white flag, killed by their own army during fighting in the north of the enclave.
Israel is massively and continuously bombing the Palestinian enclave even though some 130 people are still being held there by Hamas. The future of the hostages still present in the Gaza Strip has darkened since the end of the short truce on December 1 and raises questions about the designs of Tel Aviv, known for having used the so-called Hannibal doctrine in the past.
Avoid costly negotiations
The Hannibal doctrine or protocol is a military strategy designed by Israel, which consists of avoiding, whatever the cost, the risk of kidnapping Israeli soldiers or civilians, and allows “ to endanger the life of the soldier in question to avoid his capture”remember The Times of Israël.
The primary objective of this directive is to prevent an Israeli captured by opposing forces from becoming a bargaining chip, and therefore to remove any strategic value from hostage-taking. It allows the Hebrew State not to get stuck in long negotiations.
Considered an open secret within the Israeli army, this directive was revealed in 2003 by the daily Time. She recommends “rescue the soldiers from the kidnappers, even if it comes at the cost of injuring the soldiers”. A doctor, who served as a major in the Israeli army in Lebanon, explains the procedure to the newspaper: “Small arms fire can be used to shoot down the kidnappers or arrest them. If the vehicle or the kidnappers do not stop, sniper fire should be used to hit them, even if it means hitting our soldiers. In all cases, everything must be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape. »
The Gilad Shalit case
This directive emerged during the Lebanon War in 1986, when Hezbollah ambushed Israeli forces in the south of the country. The remains of the killed Israeli soldiers were not returned until ten years later, in exchange for the return of the bodies of 123 Shiite militia fighters.
In October 2000, after Hezbollah again captured three Israeli soldiers, the army issued a “Hannibal Directive.” Israeli helicopters fire on 26 suspicious vehicles in the area. It is unclear whether the captives are killed at this time or later. Their bodies were returned in 2003.
This doctrine is named after the Carthaginian general Hannibal (247-183 BC), who would have preferred to poison himself rather than be handed over to the Romans. According to Timethis name would however have been attributed “randomly, although particularly exotic”by the computer system.
The doctrine experienced new popularity after the taking hostage of Franco-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006 on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip. After five years of captivity, he regained his freedom in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. A trauma for Israeli society, a section of which considers these negotiations too costly because certain detainees will occupy key positions within Hamas, Israel’s enemy. “From the point of view of the army, a dead soldier is better than a captive soldier who suffers and forces the state to release thousands of prisoners in order to secure his release”further explained Time.
A controversial doctrine
In August 2014, during Operation “Cast Lead” led by Israel against Gaza, Hamas fighters kidnapped an Israeli lieutenant. The army launched the Hannibal procedure, mobilized colossal resources and shelled the town of Rafah, in the south of the enclave. In three hours, between 800 and 1,000 shells were fired. The lieutenant is killed, without knowing whether it was the shooting of his army or that of his captors which was responsible for his death. His body has not been returned. This is the last official use of the procedure.
Sometimes understood as permission to sacrifice a soldier’s life, the Hannibal Directive is controversial on legal and moral levels, both because it raises the question of the intent to kill potential hostages and because it ignores civilian deaths, considered ” collateral damages “.
In 2016, Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot officially ended Hannibal’s existence for fear that the doctrine would be misinterpreted by his troops, reports The Times of Israël, which devotes an entire section to this directive on its website. The following year, the Israeli army decided to update, but without making them public, its procedures intended to prevent the kidnapping of an Israeli by enemies.
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