Hannibal Protocol
The kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces.
The Hannibal Directive (Hebrew: נוהל חניבעל, romanized: Nóhal Khanibaál), also translated as Hannibal Procedure or Hannibal Protocol, is the name of a controversial procedure used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. Writer Eyal Weizman has stated that while the contents are still classified, "the following formulation, at the top of the directive, was made public: 'the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces.'"
It was introduced in 1986, after a number of abductions of IDF soldiers in Lebanon and subsequent controversial prisoner exchanges. The full text of the directive was never published, and until 2003, Israeli military censorship forbade any discussion of the subject in the press. The directive has been changed several times, and in 2016, IDF Chief Of Staff Gadi Eisenkot ordered the formal revocation of the standing directive and the reformulation of the protocol.
Quick Facts
- Affiliation
- Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
- First mentioned
- 1986
- Status
- Revoked in 2016, replaced by three directives in January 2017
Lore & Background
Two versions of the Hannibal Directive may have existed simultaneously at times: a written version, accessible only to the upper echelon of the IDF, and an "oral law" version for division commanders and lower levels. In the latter version, "by all means" was often interpreted literally, as in "an IDF soldier was 'better dead than abducted'." In 2011, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz stated the directive does not permit killing IDF soldiers to prevent abduction.
According to Haaretz reporter Leibovich-Dar, the motivation for the directive was the capture of two Israeli soldiers during a Hezbollah ambush in South Lebanon in June 1986. Both soldiers presumably died during the attack, and their bodies were returned to Israel in an exchange with Hezbollah in 1996. The directive developers were three top officers of the IDF Northern Command: Major General Yossi Peled, the command's operations officer; Colonel Gabi Ashkenazi; and the intelligence officer, Colonel Yaakov Amidror. The order was secret, and its existence was denied by Israeli military authorities.
Reader's Guide
The Hannibal Directive was officially revoked by the military in 2016. According to The Times of Israel, the directive was replaced by three separate directives in January 2017. They were named "True Test", "Tourniquet" and "Guardian of life" and dealt with abductions in the West Bank and outside Israel in peace time and a general directive for war time. Very little is known about the content of these directives or the eventual differences between them.
One general difference between the new and the previous Hannibal directive is that now it is clearly stated that, in case of an attempted abduction, soldiers should fire at the abductors "while avoiding hitting the captive." Dr. Avner Shiftan, an army physician with the rank of major, came across the Hannibal directive while on reserve duty in South Lebanon in 1999. In army briefings he "became aware of a procedure ordering soldiers to kill any IDF soldier if he should be taken captive by Hezbollah."
He contacted Asa Kasher, the Israeli philosopher noted for his authorship of Israel Defense Forces' Code of Conduct, who "found it difficult to believe that such an order exists" since this "is wrong ethically, legally and morally."
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