Is Israel Killing Its Own Citizens?

For months we've been documenting the atrocities Israel has been carrying out in Gaza. Amongst the latest is this. This is al-Isra University in Gaza where the IDF reportedly laid 315 mines before blowing it up. Bezirut University has also alleged that lots of valuables were stolen from that university. Now according to the university's Facebook page, the IDF has been using it as a military base for the last month, which begs the question, if your military has occupied a building for a month or more and if it has enough access to lay over 300 mines, is it really a legitimate enemy target? Or is it a war crime, the wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure? Today though, we want to turn our attention to Israel's atrocities committed not on Palestinians, but on Israelis. This is from Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The IDF has said that three Israeli hostages were killed in tunnels under Gaza and they may have been poisoned or suffocated. Two of the hostages were Ron Sherman and Nick Bezir, both 19 years old. The teenagers were also both IDF reservists taken into Hamas captivity from a military base near the Gaza border on the 7th of October. The third hostage found dead was Aliyah Teledano, a Tel Aviv resident who was at the Nova rave attacked by Hamas on the same day. Their bodies were all recovered in December from a tunnel in Jabalia, northern Gaza, near where Hamas commander Ahmed Randor was killed by the IDF. But a military investigation into the cause of death of the two soldiers has now revealed that there was no sign of gunshots or trauma. And its report goes on to say this, at this stage it cannot be denied nor confirmed that they were killed due to strangulation, suffocation, poisoning or as the result of an IDF attack or Hamas operation. The IDF also says a toxological exam is now underway. But the mother of Ron Sherman, one of the soldiers, has claimed that he was killed, quote, not from accidental gunfire, not from crossfire, but from premeditated murder, bombing with poison gas. On a Facebook post she went on to say this, Ron was kidnapped because of the criminal negligence of all the senior officials of the army and this damned government, who gave an order to eliminate him in order to settle a score with some terrorists from Jabalia. Oh yes, they also found that he had several crossed fingers, apparently due to his desperate attempts to escape the poison grave that the IDF dug for him when he tried to breathe fresh air, but only breathed IDF poison. My love, who would let me die in your place, what a nightmare you went through, death in terrible agony, and all at the behest of the IDF, which you trusted and valued so much, and the Israeli cabinet. Now those are obviously the words of a grieving mother, distraught at the loss of a young son. We don't have any proof that the IDF was responsible for Ron Sherman's death, but they do illustrate an increasing distrust in the IDF and also growing scepticism about the most prominent of the Israeli state's public justifications for the war, namely the safe return of hostages. And they come in the context of the IDF admitting that they have gunned down three hostages, shirtless, waving a white flag and calling for help in Hebrew just last month. Adding to that uncertainty are the events of October 7th, which centred on one location in Kibbutz Biri. Thirteen Israeli civilians were killed in what is now known as Pessi's house after the IDF fired tank shells at it. There were only two survivors, Yasmin Porat and Hadass Dagan. Haaretz reports this. According to Porat, after she was released by her mass terrorist, she was questioned by the police special anti-terror unit and told them that there were about 40 terrorists and 40 civilian hostages still in the house. Dagan was among the hostages inside the house where she says an Israeli tank fired two shells at it. She was the only Israeli to survive and she has confirmed Porat's account. The New York Times has also reported this on the events at Pessi's house. As dusk approached, the SWAT commander and General Hiram began to argue. The SWAT commander thought more kidnappers might surrender. The general wanted the situation resolved by nightfall. Minutes later, the militants launched a rocket-propelled grenade, according to the general and other witnesses who spoke to the Times. The negotiations are over, General Hiram recalled telling the tank commander, break in, even at the cost of civilian casualties. The tank fired two light shells at the house. The general wanted the situation resolved by nightfall. What a chilling phrase. The families of those killed in Pessi's house have now demanded military investigation into the actions of soldiers on the ground that day, according to the Times of Israel. The deaths of those civilians at the hands of the IDF, as well as the killing of soldiers in Gaza, has led many to question whether Israel is employing the so-called Hannibal Directive in its approach to the war. This is a recent Haaretz piece by journalist Noah Slimoni. She calls for an immediate investigation into whether the directive was used at Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7th. The IDF has said it will investigate those events, but only after the war is over. You might think that's a little too late when there are still captives in Gaza. So what is the Hannibal Directive? It was a military protocol formerly used by the IDF until 2016. Created in 1986 following the capture of three Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, it instructs soldiers to use maximum force to prevent abductions. The reasoning behind it? Hostages are given enemy leverage in negotiations, with Israel historically paying a high price in prisoner exchanges for the return of soldiers. Now, the IDF has denied any interpretation of the Hannibal Directive that allows the killing of soldiers. But former IDF soldiers have said that was how it was understood on the ground. Yehuda Sha'el was an IDF soldier during the Second Intifada between 2000 and 2005. He went on to found Breaking the Silence, an organisation of veterans calling for an end to the occupation. Sha'el spoke with Al Jazeera, who reported this. You will open fire without constraints in order to prevent the abduction, he said, adding that the use of force is carried out even at the risk of killing a captive soldier. In addition to firing at the abductors, soldiers can fire at junctions, roads, highways and other pathways opponents may take a kidnapped soldier through, Sha'el said. Sha'el said that the Directive was shared with him and other commanders orally. I've never seen any written text of the rules of engagement, he said. Now, the Hannibal Directive was officially revoked in 2016, but suspicions are growing that it is being used in Israel's campaign in Gaza currently ongoing. Asa Kasher is a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Tel Aviv. He's also the author of the IDF's current Code of Conduct. Unlawful, unethical and horrifying is how he has described the IDF's alleged use of the Hannibal Directive in a new interview with Haaretz. Speaking about the Be'iri case, Kasher told Haaretz this. The idea that you would try and prevent an attempt to move civilians into Gaza by firing a tank mortar into the structure they are being held in is intolerable. It's unacceptable from the perspective of army orders and it's unacceptable from the perspective of army values. How is it possible that a high-ranking army official would give a command that so immediately and definitely endangers the life of so many civilians? It's just horrifying. Kasher also described a death cult ideology at the heart of the IDF. The army has in the past and continues to cultivate an ideology wherein sacrificing one's life is revered above all else. We all grew up on this myth of Tel Hai that Trump Eldor's last words was, it is good to die for our country. It's bad to die for our country. That's what every single soldier needs to hear. Well, didn't you write the IDF Code of Conduct? Can't you stick that in? But just by way of explanation, Tel Hai is the name of the location of an early Jewish settlement in Palestine, as well as the site of a 1920 battle, which has become an enduring part of Israeli national and military mythology. And Joseph Trump Eldor was an early Zionist activist who died in that battle. Dahlia, what does the existence of the Hannibal Directive tell us about Israel and the ideology that the whole country is built on? It tells us that settler colonialism, wherever it's found, is a politics of death and a politics of destruction. You know, as you outlined, the reason that this directive exists is because there is this understanding that the taking of hostages gives the enemy leverage, right? And therefore, in order to remove that leverage, the enemy being the Palestinians, in order to remove that leverage, you have to basically make it clear that even if you have to remove that possibility. So to say, even if you take hostages, we will kill you all, even if it includes the hostages, right? You know, it's not lost on me that in that quote, when he says, how can an army give a directive that would endanger so many civilian lives? I mean, that's the status quo of the IDF. That is what has been happening way before the latest escalation in aggressions. It is the status quo, and it's not just something that should be visible when relating to Israeli civilian deaths. But yeah, I mean, this is what settler colonialism is. In order to create a state that has at its heart, that privileges one identity in a place where the majority of people are not of that identity, you have to dispossess and you have to kill and you have to destroy. And I think that, you know, that and that has to be an ongoing project. It's why when you look at another settler colonial state, like Canada, for example, until 1998, or 1996, sorry, they were essentially kidnapping indigenous children from their parents to put them in boarding schools in order to quote unquote, assimilate them into Canadian Christianity, you look at the state of indigenous rights in the US, in Australia, it's an ongoing project that never ends. And that is what sustains this project. And so I think also, so that's kind of in a more ideological sense that this is going and this death and destruction turns on in on itself as well, of course, as we can see here. But in this particular moment, I think that there is also you know, the reason that this is being deployed right now and the reason we are seeing this politics of kill anything that moves, you know, Gaza is being mowed down in the most indiscriminate, obscene way. And the reason we are seeing this kind of, of seemingly incoherent military strategy, that doesn't have any cohesive objective, other than essentially to ethnically cleanse the region to ethnically cleanse Gaza.