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Hannibal Protocol

The Hannibal Protocol (also called the Hannibal Directive), a procedure used by the Israeli army to prevent the capture of its soldiers, even if it means killing them, so this protocol allows the bombing of captured soldiers' positions. It was drafted by three high-ranking officers, and it remained a secret protocol until its adoption in 2006. The "Hannibal" Protocol sparked widespread controversy in Israel, as its opponents describe it as a "brutal option" that risks the lives of prisoners who could be saved.

The term “Hannibal Protocol” reappeared in Operation “ Al-Aqsa Flood ,” which was launched by the Palestinian resistance at dawn on October 7, 2023, during which it stormed the settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip, took control of several military sites and bases for the occupation army, and captured about 250 Israelis, including dozens. Soldiers and officers, to which the occupation responded with violent bombing of Gaza, resulting in thousands of martyrs and wounded.

Opinions differ on whether this military protocol was called “Hannibal,” and on who specifically coined the term. There are those who believe that the term was applied to the way in which the historical leader of Carthage, Hannibal Barca, ended his life, when he chose to poison himself rather than fall prisoner into the hands of the Romans. While others believe that the name of the system - which remained a military secret until 2006 - was chosen randomly by a computer belonging to the occupation army about 3 decades ago, and was developed by 3 senior army officers.

The Israeli army was considered the only one in the world that uses this procedure, despite the repeated internal criticism it faces, which believes that it does not provide protection for its forces in the field.

Its development and formulation dates back to the conclusion of the prisoner deal called “Galilee” between Israel and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine movement led by its Secretary-General Ahmed Jibril in 1985, during which he exchanged 3 Israeli soldiers for 1,150 Palestinian prisoners. After that, the “Hannibal Directive” system was officially introduced in 1986, 5 months after the Lebanese Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers (Youssef Fink and Rafael Al-Sheikh), and the ensuing prisoner exchange operations were described as “unbalanced”, and the soldiers were thus directed Israelis must obstruct the kidnapping of their colleagues at all costs.

The protocol was drafted - at the time - by Yossi Peled, head of the IDF's Northern Command, in cooperation with a committee consisting of retired General Uri Or, former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, commander of the IDF's Northern Command, Amram Levin, and former National Security Advisor General Colonel Yaakov Amidror. For more than a decade, military censors prevented journalists from reporting on this protocol, or even discussing its subject, and the full text of the directive was never published, claiming that doing so might weaken the morale of the Israeli people. In 2003, an Israeli doctor who heard about the directive while serving as a reservist in Lebanon began calling for its repeal, which led to it being declassified.

It was believed that there are two different versions of the Hannibal Directive, one a secret written version available only at the highest levels of the Israeli army, and the other an oral directive to division commanders and lower levels. From the IDF's point of view, the concept of "better a dead soldier than a captured soldier" was the core of the Hannibal Protocol doctrine. The directive specified the steps the army should take in the event of a soldier being kidnapped, and its stated goal was to prevent soldiers from falling into enemy hands, even If necessary, kill them.

Military officials consider that the kidnapping of soldiers was a strategic matter, not a tactical matter, and carries a very high price that Israel must pay in order to release them. In essence, the protocol relies on a scorched earth policy, and stipulates the opening of indiscriminate fire if a soldier was captured, with the aim of killing both the captors and the prisoner together. The protocol places full responsibility for expediting this on the local commander, because in such cases the first minutes are decisive. In 2011, a Golani commander was recorded telling his unit, “No soldier in the 51st Battalion will be kidnapped, at any cost or under any circumstances. Even if it means he has to detonate his grenade with those who try to arrest him, even if it means he has to detonate his grenade with those who try to capture him.” "That meant his unit would have to fire on the getaway car."

Although the details of the "Hannibal" Protocol were secret for years, it sparked intense disagreements, until it was amended after the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to Gaza in 2006, and the language of the controversial document was softened to clarify that it did not call for the deliberate killing of captured soldiers. The Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, Benny Gantz, thus established a principle known as the principle of double effect, which stipulates that a bad outcome (killing a captured soldier) was morally permissible only as a side effect of promoting a good action (stopping his captors).

In June 2016, the former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, Gadi Eisenkot, announced the cancellation of the “Hannibal Protocol”, based on the recommendation of Yosef Shapira, the State Attorney General and retired judge, which came within the framework of the chapter on international law in the draft report on the aggression against Gaza. In the summer of 2014. Eisenkot then ordered the writing of a new order that was being worked on in the Operations Department, regarding dealing with cases of soldiers being captured, but not much was known about the details of these amendments. It was believed - according to reports - that the wording of the old document, which was applicable anywhere, and its procedures are constantly being reviewed to prevent any misunderstanding, and 3 protocols have been developed in its place related to the location and circumstances of the kidnapping, and they have been given 3 different names:

1. The first, called the real test, concerns kidnapping in the West Bank during peacetime.
2. The second was called a tourniquet (bandage to stop bleeding) and was specific to kidnapping anywhere outside Israel's borders in peacetime.
3. As for the third, it was called the same guard, and it was concerned with kidnapping cases anywhere inside or outside Israel, but during a state of war, or in other emergency situations.

While there was no protocol directed at dealing with cases of kidnapping soldiers inside Israel in peacetime. It was believed that the tripartite protocol remained faithful to the policy of dealing with these cases. The old document, which contained secret texts, stated that “military personnel must thwart any kidnapping of soldiers, even if they have to harm or injure a fellow soldier.” The new amendment calls for care to "avoid injury to kidnapped soldiers."

Since it became official, the "Hannibal" Protocol has sparked much controversy and public criticism within the Israeli security community, and the central question has been about the ethics of the protocol and the various consequences of its directives. For years, the directive was open to different and ambiguous interpretations, and Israeli soldiers on the battlefield debated it vigorously, and at least one battalion commander, according to an investigation conducted by the Haaretz newspaper, refused to inform his soldiers of this protocol, under the pretext that it was “illegal.”

In practice, each military commander offered his own interpretation of the implementation of Hannibal's directive to his soldiers. News reports reported that the Golani battalion commander ordered his soldiers to blow themselves up with a hand grenade if they found themselves in danger of being kidnapped. As for the former commander of the Nahal Brigade, Colonel Moti Baruch, he ordered his soldiers to do everything in their power to prevent the kidnappings, including shooting at the kidnappers’ car while endangering the prisoner’s life.

This was considered illegal by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and urged Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to instruct the government and the army that such military actions are not permitted, whether due to the threat to the kidnapped soldier or the potential killing and harm of civilians. As for the organization’s chief legal advisor, Dan Yakir, he believed that implementing this protocol in a densely populated area violates the principle of discrimination in international humanitarian law, and constitutes “an illegal method of fighting that violates the laws of war,” and that granting permission to soldiers to inflict “harm on another soldier to prevent his kidnapping “It shakes the foundations of law and morality, and must be absolutely condemned.

Some battalion commanders refused to pass the directives to their forces, and other soldiers requested guidance on its implementation from clerics and rabbis, and some of them informed their commanders of their refusal to implement it on the battlefield.

Models of implementation of the "Hannibal" Protocol

1. March 2016: The “Hannibal” Protocol entered into force for half an hour, when two soldiers were forced to abandon their vehicle after being attacked during the storming of the Qalandiya refugee camp. The Israeli army said at the time that it used this procedure after realizing that one soldier was missing.
2. August 2014: Used when Lieutenant Hadar Goldin was believed to have been captured in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The indiscriminate Israeli military bombing led to the killing of between 135 and 200 Palestinian civilians, including 75 children, within 3 hours, and in the end, the army decided that the soldier was already dead before implementing the protocol.
3. July 2014: IDF forces activated the Hannibal Protocol and ordered massive gunfire when a soldier named Guy Levy was believed to be missing during the Battle of Shujaiya.
4. October 2000: The “Hannibal Protocol” was activated when Hezbollah captured 3 Israeli soldiers in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms area, namely, Uday Abtan, Benjamin Abraham, and Omar Suwaid, and transported them across the ceasefire line to Lebanon, and an Israeli attack helicopter opened fire on them. 26 vehicles were traveling in the area, thinking that the kidnapped soldiers would be taken to one of them.
5. During the Gaza War (2008–2009): The order was issued when an Israeli soldier was shot by Hamas fighters while searching a house in the Gaza Strip. The house was later bombed to prevent the wounded soldiers from being captured alive.
6. June 2006: When Hamas captured Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid from Gaza, it came too late and did not prevent his kidnapping. Ultimately, he was exchanged in 2011 for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, which was the highest number of prisoners ever exchanged for a single Israeli prisoner.
7. July 2006: The Hannibal Protocol was activated when Hezbollah fighters near the village of Aita al-Shaab on the Lebanese-Israeli border captured two Israeli soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev), and three other soldiers were killed. In the end, the soldiers' bodies were returned in 2008 in exchange for the release of Lebanese prisoner Nassim Nasr.

Israel has implemented the “Hannibal” directive on numerous occasions since 1986, and one of the most devastating implementation was in Rafah in 2014. Of the 11 Israelis to whom the protocol was applied on 7 occasions, only one soldier survived.

1. March 2016: The “Hannibal” Protocol entered into force for half an hour, when two soldiers were forced to abandon their vehicle after being attacked during the storming of the Qalandiya refugee camp. The Israeli army said at the time that it used this procedure after realizing that one soldier was missing.
2. August 2014: Used when Lieutenant Hadar Goldin was believed to have been captured in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The indiscriminate Israeli military bombing led to the killing of between 135 and 200 Palestinian civilians, including 75 children, within 3 hours, and in the end, the army decided that the soldier was already dead before implementing the protocol.
3. July 2014: IDF forces activated the Hannibal Protocol and ordered massive gunfire when a soldier named Guy Levy was believed to be missing during the Battle of Shujaiya.
4. October 2000: The “Hannibal Protocol” was activated when Hezbollah captured 3 Israeli soldiers in the Shebaa Farms area occupied by “Israel”, namely Uday Abtan, Benjamin Abraham, and Omar Suwaid, and transported them across the ceasefire line to Lebanon, and an Israeli attack helicopter was launched. They opened fire on 26 vehicles traveling in the area, thinking that the kidnapped soldiers would be transferred to one of them.
5. During the Gaza War (2008–2009): The order was issued when an Israeli soldier was shot by Hamas fighters while searching a house in the Gaza Strip. The house was later bombed to prevent the wounded soldiers from being captured alive.
6. June 2006: When Hamas captured Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid from Gaza, it came too late and did not prevent his kidnapping. Ultimately, he was exchanged in 2011 for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, which was the highest number of prisoners ever exchanged for a single Israeli prisoner.
7. July 2006: The “Hannibal Protocol” was activated when Hezbollah fighters near the village of Aita al-Shaab on the Lebanese-Israeli border captured two Israeli soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev), and three other soldiers were killed. In the end, the soldiers' bodies were returned in 2008 in exchange for the release of Lebanese prisoner Nassim Nasr.

The Israeli army ordered the Hannibal Directive – a controversial Israeli military policy aimed at preventing the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces at any cost – on 07 October 2023, an investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed. In a report on 07 July 2024, the newspaper, based on testimonies of Israeli soldiers and senior army officers, said that during Hamas’s unprecedented attack last October, the Israeli army started making decisions with limited and unverified information, and issued an order that “not a single vehicle can return to Gaza”. The report said the Hannibal protocol “was employed at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas” and “this did not prevent the kidnapping of seven of them [soldiers] or the killing of 15 other spotters, as well as 38 other soldiers”.