Another crucial omission was Afek’s failure to explain the factors that led to suspicions that operations in Rafah had violated the laws of war. The first of these was the Hannibal Directive, which stated that if a soldier were kidnapped, his comrades should try to kill the kidnappers, even at the cost of the abducted soldier’s life.
Afek found that there were significant gaps in commanders’ understanding of this directive, and also between the General Staff’s orders and those issued by the Southern Command and units in Gaza. But he didn’t think these gaps warranted any steps against individual commanders.
He also said the Hannibal Directive doesn’t override the rules of engagement that govern shooting at kidnappers during a kidnapping, and formally, he’s correct. But in practice, if officers and soldiers understood that to prevent the abduction of a soldier, they were permitted, and perhaps even obligated, to kill or endanger their own comrade, what does this imply about the degree to which the lives of Gazan residents could be endangered during combat against Hamas terrorists?
And to tell the truth, the policy of all Israeli governments on prisoner swaps, from the 1985 Jibril deal to the 2011 Shalit deal, exposes our soft underbelly to the enemy and turns a soldier’s abduction into a strategic problem of the first order. This policy is understandable from a human perspective, but nevertheless unreasonable. The Hannibal Directive was born of this mistaken policy. But given this policy, is there a limit to what should be done to prevent the kidnapping of a soldier, including, if necessary, killing or wounding enemy noncombatants?
On peut aussi légitimement penser que lors des combats du 7 octobre contre le Hamas certains Israéliens aient été tués accidentellement par des forces d’occupation sionistes appliquant la directive.