So now we have confirmation from an exposé in Haaretz that the Hannibal directive, introduced in 1986 and supposedly revoked in 2016, was activated on the morning of October the 7th.
"Everyone knew by then that such vehicles could be carrying kidnapped civilians or soldiers," a source in Southern Command told Haaretz. "There was no case in which a vehicle carrying kidnapped people was knowingly attacked, but you couldn't really know if there were any such people in a vehicle. I can't say there was a clear instruction, but everyone knew what it meant to not let any vehicles return to Gaza."
In this first episode I look at the meaning and implications of the revelation that Israel had indeed in place a program of assassination to target Israeli soldiers and civilians for strategic and political gain.
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The Hannibal Directive and its meaning