Editor’s Note: The author of this article requested that their name not be published, fearing for their personal safety due to the intensification of fascist persecutions against critical voices in Israel.
Since October 7, the day’s events have been shrouded in mystery. There are not only questions about the Israeli intelligence apparatus’s colossal failure to anticipate what was happening in the tightly besieged Strip or the quick collapse of their billion-dollar “Maginot Line” but also the details of what actually transpired in the military bases and settlements around the Gaza Strip. We know that, by common estimates, 1,400 Israelis were killed in the following few days, but we do not yet know the details of how.
Some reports are beginning to appear, including documentation of the killing of Israelis by Palestinian fighters, but there are a growing number of reports that indicate the Israeli military was also responsible for Israeli civilian and military deaths on October 7 and the days after.
Hannibal Directive in action?
On Friday, October 20, Haaretz published a lengthy article by its senior military analyst, Amos Harel, describing Israel’s failure to prepare for Hamas’s October 7 attacks. He introduces his readers to “the commander of the Gaza Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld,” whom he met a few weeks before the war, and heard from him that “things won’t get better, at some point they’ll get worse.”
He goes on to describe what happened on October 7:
“The Coordination and Liaison Office was attacked on October 7 together with all the outposts along the division’s line. A large Hamas force seized the adjacent Erez Crossing, which was closed for the Simhat Torah holiday. From there, within minutes and with no resistance, they advanced into the military base, killing and kidnapping the soldiers of the Civil Administration, though a few of them managed to return fire before being hit… Brig. Gen. Rosenfeld entrenched himself in the division’s subterranean war room together with a handful of male and female soldiers, trying desperately to rescue and organize the sector under attack. Many of the soldiers, most of them not combat personnel, were killed or wounded outside. The division was compelled to request an aerial strike against the base itself in order to repulse the terrorists.”
This dry, complimentary description of the high commander, hiding with a few soldiers in an underground bunker and ordering an aerial bombardment of “the base” where his soldiers were fighting against Hamas militants, maybe wounded and maybe taken as prisoners, has a lot to say about the Israeli psyche in these bloody times.
It brings back to my mind the events of August 1, 2014, during the most violent Israeli campaign against Gaza up to the current one. On August 1, there was a ceasefire, but an Israeli unit initiated a provocation that ended with the capture of one of its soldiers by Palestinian militants. The Israeli response was devastating, clearly designed to make sure that the soldier, Hadar Goldin, would be dead with as many Palestinians as possible. According to investigations by Amnesty International and the United Nations, cited in Wikipedia, “the massive Israeli bombardment killed between 135 and 200 Palestinian civilians, including 75 children, in the three hours following the suspected capture of the one Israeli soldier.”
These events are not accidental local eruptions of the “Samsonian” desire to die (or let your soldiers die) with one’s enemies. It is a well-documented official policy of the Israeli army, at least since 1986, known as the “Hannibal Directive,” the “Hannibal code,” or the “Hannibal doctrine.”
It may not have ended with General Rosenfeld ordering the bombing of his soldiers. It will take years until we may (or may not) have a full picture of what happened on October 7 and the following days. But in addition to military deaths, there are also some details regarding the Israeli role in Israeli civilian deaths that can already be found amid the heavy flow of propaganda around the events of the day.
Deaths in Kibbutz Be’eri
Electronic Intifada published a long interview with Yasmin Porat, describing how she was held hostage by Palestinian militants in Kibbutz Be’eri. According to her account, the kidnappers treated her and other hostages “humanely,” believing they would be allowed to retreat safely to Gaza due to the protection of the Israeli captives. However, when the Israeli soldiers arrived, “they eliminated everyone, including the hostages. There was very, very heavy crossfire.”
Her testimony is complemented by evidence from Israeli soldiers who described how the Israeli military shot tank shells into buildings where militants and their hostages were hiding.
On October 11, Quique Kierszenbaum reported in The Guardian about his tour of Kibbutz Be’eri, a tour organized by the Israeli Army’s propaganda unit. He writes:
“Building after building has been destroyed, whether in the Hamas assault or in the fighting that followed, nearby trees splintered and walls reduced to concrete rubble from where Israeli tanks blasted the Hamas militants where they were hiding. Floors collapsed on floors. Roof beams were tangled and exposed like rib cages.”
In another report in Haaretz in Hebrew (it does not appear to be available in English) on October 11, probably following the same army-guided PR tour, Nir Hasson and Eden Solomon interviewed “Erez, deputy commander of an armored reserve battalion.” He described how he and his tanks unit “fought inside the kibbutz, from house to house, with the tanks.” “We had no choice,” he concludes.
Most recently, Nir Hasson returned to Be’eri and interviewed a local resident named Tuval, who was lucky to be away from the kibbutz at the time of the attack but whose partner was killed. In Hasson’s October 20 Haaretz article, he reports:
“His voice trembles when his partner, who was besieged in her home shelter at the time, comes to mind. According to him, only on Monday night and only after the commanders in the field made difficult decisions — including shelling houses with all their occupants inside in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages — did the IDF complete the takeover of the kibbutz. The price was terrible: at least 112 Be’eri people were killed. Others were kidnapped. Yesterday, 11 days after the massacre, the bodies of a mother and her son were discovered in one of the destroyed houses. It is believed that more bodies are still lying in the rubble.”
This quote is important for several reasons; one is because it adds to the understood timeline of events. This testimony would seem to indicate that many Israeli captives were still alive on Monday, October 9, a full two days after the events of Saturday, October 7. While it might be understandable if captives had been killed in the hectic crossfire of an initial Israeli response to the attack on the 7th, this account would seem to indicate that the decision to assault the kibbutz and everyone inside was made as a clear military calculation.
It is clear Palestinian militants were hiding in these buildings with their Israeli captives as Israeli soldiers were blasting their way in with massive tank shells in close quarters. It deserves to be investigated who caused most of the death and destruction that took place. This is especially important as these deaths are now being used to justify the destruction of Gaza and the killing of thousands of civilians there.
Implications for Israeli captives in Gaza
All this is not history or simply in the past. There are implications for the next stage of the war, which might be even much bloodier. One central element of the conflict is now the fate of more than two hundred Israeli captives, soldiers, and civilians.
For the Palestinians, this is a historic opportunity to release their long-held militants from what they call “the occupation bastilles.” Even as Palestinians know that the liberation of their land is still a distant dream, the liberation of their prisoners through a prisoner swap is the most precious victory for which they can strive. However, Israel, as it has proved many times in the past and as recent events may indicate, may be ready to put the lives of its soldiers and citizens at risk rather than witness the joy of freedom celebrated on both sides of the border.
Thank you, whoever you are. I had already read at least one report hinting that what is grotesquely described as “friendly fire” was involved at the Nova music festival. There is a lot of dirt to come out.
Survivor Speaks: Israeli forces shot their own civilians
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTQcjyhPOIk
Hannibal Directivehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive
I was incredulous, to say the least, after the opening paragraphs, but the second half of this article answers too many questions, I myself have been struggling with, to be ignored.
There is no doubt that Hamas’s attack was nothing short of a spectacular failure of Israeli security and imagination. To say that Israel was caught with its pants down is putting it mildly. Israeli security was pants down, passed out drunk, in the street, in a puddle of its own urine, with one hand up its arse and the other hugging a trash can. While Hamas appears to have had not just a stroke of luck, but a trifecta, lottery jackpot, remembered a day late that they had a trip booked on the Titanic because they won at the races and had been celebrating all night kind of luck.
However, the question of how Hamas’s blind luck allowed them to carry out that much destruction and collateral damage remains unanswered. They were armed with AK-47s, maybe some grenades and apparently some thermite. I’ve yet to see any varified reports of suicide vests, boobytraps or high yield explosives being used or found. In short, nothing to suggest the kind of destruction we have seen.
We do, however, know of one party with the resources and track record of that level of destructive power when it comes to homes and infrastructure. A party that despite talking a big game about “not targeting civilians”, “pinpoint strikes”, and “keeping collateral damage to an absolute minimum” still has a militant to civilian casualty ratio of more than ten civilians for every one militant.
It doesn’t take a mathematician to extrapolate and come to the conclusion that if the IDF was indeed using the same “care” they use in the West Bank and Gaza, if they killed 10 Hamas militants barricaded in houses, at least a hundred Israelis would have been collateral damage, and if they killed 50 militants the number would be a substantial percentage of the final number of Israeli casualties so far.
The question is was the destruction and collateral damage of civilians and infrastructure carried out by the IDF at these locations due to rage induced fog war or was it by design? Sadly, this question is already moot, because the result is the same. These crime scenes are now so badly contaminated by the IDF that no serious independent investigation could be conclusive as to the cause of death to a large portion of these poor Israelis. Not to mention that, much like Hamas, the Israeli government and its well-oiled propaganda machine will think nothing of taking full advantage of this simple fact and exploit it to their full advantage.
After all, this is the same government and PM that paraded distraught Israeli parents all over Europe and in front of the media begging for the release of their 3 kidnapped teenagers for a full week in 2014, when they already knew within hours of the abduction they had been killed. A depraved fiasco that Israel took full advantage of to justify the 51 Day War in 2014.
As I began to read, I said to myself this cannot be the case. As I continued to read (will read several more times) I became more convinced of the possibility that the IDF was caught up in the frenzy or was possibly ordered to do so.
I am always suspect when “anonymous” is the source.
Been wondering since soon after Hamas’s heinous massacre of Israeli’s and the talk which has dissipated on mainstream media outlets about Israel’s intelligence agencies and Netanyahu failing so miserably to anticipate and stop the Hamas attack. So many references to the Hamas attack and subsequent death in proportion to their population being their “9/11” over and over we have heard this.
Has totally had me wondering did Netanyahu ignore warnings about a potential attack by Hamas the way Counter terrorism expert for four U.S. administrations Richard Clarke, wrote in several of his books and testified under oath in congress that he HAD TRIED TO WARN the Bush administration, in particular to Stephen Hadley, Condi “mushroom cloud” Rice and former VP Cheney that counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke believed Al Qeada would try to attack, specifically with planes.
Also, now deceased Bush 43’s former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neil said in Ron Susskind’s book “The Price of Loyalty” that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz were obsessed during the first Bush 41’s administration’s cabinet meetings in 2001 and every cabinet meeting after, with attacking Iraq. Essentially trying to figure out how to fix intelligence around their agenda. Choosing to ignore potential attacks by Al Qeada provided that opportunity to blame Iraq who IAEA inspector Scott Ritter and others told us back before the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
So my question or suspicion is did this horrific situation in Israel provide Netanyahu, others in Israel, the I lobby in the U.S. provide a way to drag the U.S. into an overt war with Iran. Which many of us know Netanyahu and the Israel lobby have been trying to do for over two decades.
Egyptian officials have said Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence agencies ignored warnings
https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big/?fbclid=IwAR32gwk5W11hrMCrTXg1e_6mSdhRvCcqomXBpwxfOmM9ZLEASignnA61a0U
Drag the U.S. into an overt war with Iran. Is this exactly why there was such a catastrophic intelligence failure by Israel and Netanyahu? Did they want a way to have a more serious excuse to go head to head with Iran and drag the U.S. in? Will the U.S. be in an overt war with Iran within months?
The U.S. did it with Iraq. They ignored warnings from intelligence experts about Al Qeada. Used 9/11 to fix intelligence around their agenda to invade Iraq. Blaming Iraq for an attack many knew they were not responsible for. This could be Israeli’s 9/11 in more ways than one.
I keep thinking if people are willing to call this inhumane, hideous massacre of Israeli’s their 9/11 in proportion to their population. What do we call another massacre of Palestinians by Israel over the decades….their 6th 9/11 or Nakba?