Israel is killing its own people as it kills Gazans, sacrificing Israeli lives so it can carry on with the genocide. Fewer hostages means Hamas has less leverage.
by Jonathan Cook, reposted from Jonathan Cook Blog
Those of us who keep banging on about Israel’s use of the so-called “Hannibal directive” on 7 October 2023 – in which Israel killed its own citizens to stop them being taken captive by Hamas – have been smeared as excusing Hamas crimes that day.
That is not why we flag the issue.
In part, it is because some of the most horrifying images from 7 October of charred bodies and wrecked cars and homes in Israel – adduced as evidence of an especial barbarism that is supposedly typical of Palestinians – were almost certainly caused by Israel invoking its scorched-earth directive that day.
Those images became central to the propaganda blitz launched by Israel and its apologists to justify the mass slaughter of Gaza’s children over the subsequent 17 months.
But there is also a far more urgent and pressing reason to keep our attention focused on the role of the Hannibal directive. And it relates to what is happening right now.
Israel and the US are still applying the Hannibal directive – against the Israeli captives held in Gaza.
The point of the directive has always been to stop the enemy being able to use Israeli hostages as leverage to draw Israel into negotiations – primarily to pressure it to hand over any of the thousands of Palestinian hostages it holds in its prison-torture camps. Many of them have never been charged or tried.
Israel and the US tell us they need to carpet bomb Gaza – in what amounts to a “plausible” genocide, according to the world’s highest court – to force Hamas to return the Israeli captives. But in fact, Israel and the US are recklessly killing those very same captives through their actions.
Why? So they don’t have to negotiate over a ceasefire. So they can carry on with the genocide, without pressure to deal with the fate of the Israelis held in Gaza.
It was exactly the same reckless approach on 7 October, when Israel showed it was indifferent as to whether Israelis lived or died so long as they weren’t taken captive.
That’s why – in one instance we know about – the Israeli military fired into a home in Kibbutz Be’eri, knowing that there were a dozen or more Israelis inside, including children. The army was completely indifferent as to whether those Israelis would be killed as a result. All but two were. Those witnesses are the main reason we know what really happened.
That’s why Israel’s Apache helicopters recklessly fired on hundreds of cars fleeing the Nova music festival, indifferent as to whether the cars contained Hamas fighters or Israeli citizens.
Even the former defense minister Yoav Gallant admits the directive was invoked that day.
We’ll never know how many Israelis were killed – in part because Israel will never let us know. It’s even buried many of the destroyed cars to stop a forensic investigation. Read more.
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- “Well What SHOULD Israel Have Done After October 7?”
