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World Affairs
Mahesh

11/07/24 11:48 AM IST

Israel’s Hannibal Directive

In News
  • The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz has reported that when Hamas attacked recently, the IDF activated a deadly military policy that aims to exterminate the enemy even at the cost of killing Israeli soldiers. 
Hannibal Directive
  • The expression refers to a purported IDF operational policy that aims to pre-empt politically painful prisoner swaps by immediately eliminating everyone in the vicinity of a captive Israeli soldier, even if it poses a risk to the soldier himself.
  • The full text of the purported doctrine has never been published, even though its existence has been an open secret that has long been discussed by soldiers and analysts.
  • Describing the procedures to be used in the minutes and hours immediately following a possible abduction, the directive states:
  • In case of capture, the main mission becomes rescuing our soldiers from the captors, even at the cost of hitting or wounding our soldiers.
History
  • Israeli officials have maintained that the name was chosen at random.
  • But it is believed that the policy was named after the Carthaginian general Hannibal, who apparently chose to kill himself when faced with the possibility of capture by the Romans in c. 181 BCE.
  • Hannibal, who commanded the forces of Carthage, a great city in what is now Tunisia, in the 17-year Second Punic War with the Roman Empire, had taken refuge with Prusias I of Bithynia in north-west Anatolia. The Romans forced Prusias to give him up, but Hannibal was determined not to be captured.
  • According to accounts left by the Roman writer Cornelius Nepos and the historian Titus Livius, upon discovering that he had been surrounded, Hannibal consumed poison.
  • The Hannibal Doctrine was formulated as a response to the Jibril Agreement of 1985 in which 1,150 Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for three Israelis who had been seized in Lebanon by the Syria-based militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).
  • The deal, which was negotiated over almost a year, was nicknamed after the leader of the PFLP-GC, Ahmed Jibril.
  • Among the Palestinians released by Israel was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who went on to found Hamas in 1987.
  • The swap negotiations were exhausting, and the deal was seen as costly by many Israelis, who did not want to see a repeat.
  • In mid-1986, after Hezbollah attempted to abduct two Israeli soldiers to southern Lebanon, Yossi Peled, then head of the IDF’s Northern Command, drafted the operational order that would become the basis of the Hannibal Doctrine.
  • In its original form, the Hannibal Doctrine endorsed the use of light arms fire to stop the abductors or their vehicles, in order to prevent them from escaping.
  • Over the years, this meaning has been interpreted loosely by the IDF, which has even employed attack helicopters in its pursuance of the doctrine.
Significance
  • Israeli military censorship forbade all discussion of this subject in the press until 2003, when a doctor revealed its existence in a letter to Ha’aretz.
  • After proof of its existence came to light, the directive did not attract criticism from Israelis, primarily because of the perception that any soldiers captured by militants would not be extended the dignity of being treated as prisoners of war.
  • It also made sense to many soldiers to avoid being captured, even at the cost of risking dying in the process.
  • The Hannibal Doctrine has been criticised by legal experts for its disregard for human life.
  • Asa Kasher, the philosopher who framed the IDF’s Code of Conduct, called out the alleged abuse of this policy by the IDF on recently in trapping civilians while attempting to corner Hamas.
Source- Indian Express

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