Army was ordered to kill Israelis on 7 October, defence minister confirms
Originally published: Pearls and Irritations on February 13, 2025 by Asa Winstanley (more by Pearls and Irritations) (Posted Feb 14, 2025)
https://youtu.be/48ADwSrPG9w (Video would not post)
The order to carry out Israel’s so-called Hannibal Directive was issued “tactically” and “in various places” next to Gaza, Yoav Gallant told Israel’s Channel 12 on Thursday. “In other places it was not given, and that is a problem,” he continued.
Questioning Gallant, journalist Amit Segal clarified for viewers that “the Hannibal Directive says to shoot to kill when there is a vehicle containing an Israeli hostage” – a characterisation Gallant did not contest.
Gallant was speaking in his first interview with Israeli television since being fired in November.
You can watch a subtitled clip in the video above or the full interview in Hebrew on the Channel 12 website.
First public admission
Contrary to Gallant’s statement that the Hannibal Directive was unevenly applied in different areas, Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported in January 2024 that at midday on 7 October, an unambiguous order was given from the high command of the Israeli military to invoke the Hannibal Directive across the entire region.
The order came “even if this means the endangerment or harming of the lives of civilians in the region, including the captives themselves”, Israeli journalists Ronen Bergman and Yoav Zitun reported.
In July, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the order “not a single vehicle can return to Gaza” was issued to the Gaza Division of the Israeli military at 11:22 am that day.
But Gallant’s new statement is highly significant, as the first public admission by a contemporary Israeli minister that their troops were ordered to fire on their own people on 7 October.
A military doctrine first issued in secret by Israeli generals in the 1980s, the Hannibal Directive is Israel’s national murder-suicide pact.
Initially it stated that, when issued, Israeli troops could fire on other Israeli troops who had just been captured by Palestinian or other Arab resistance fighters.
Unprecedented
But on 7 October 2023, in an unprecedented military offensive, Palestinian fighters recaptured land next to the Gaza Strip, which had first been lost to the Israelis in 1948.
Roughly 250 Israeli soldiers and civilians were captured by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, in what they called Operation Al Aqsa Flood.
Israel’s response was to reactivate and unleash the Hannibal doctrine, extending it to Israeli civilians, as well as soldiers.
Fire from Israeli helicopters, drones, tanks and even ground troops was deliberately unleashed, in a failed attempt to prevent Palestinian fighters from taking live Israeli captives who would then be later exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
Roughly 1100 Israelis were killed. It is still unclear exactly how many of these were killed by Israelis and how many by Palestinians. One year on, an investigation by The Electronic Intifada found that at least “hundreds” were killed by Israel.
Official figures, published for the first time last month, revealed that the Israeli Air Force fired 11,000 shells, dropped more than 500 heavy one-ton bombs and launched 180 missiles “during the fighting” on 7 October.
An independent United Nations inquiry last year criticised Israeli authorities for barring them access to the country.
“Israeli officials not only refused to cooperate with the commission’s investigation but also reportedly barred medical professionals and others from being in contact” with them, the inquiry’s report stated.
With translation by David Sheen.
https://mronline.org/2025/02/14/army-wa ... -confirms/
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Israel ready to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities ‘with or without’ US backing: Report
US intelligence estimates say Israel is considering attacking Iran’s nuclear sites and that the strikes could potentially occur this year
News Desk
FEB 14, 2025
(Photo credit: AP)
Israel is looking to “seize the moment” to carry out an attack against Iranian nuclear facilities if diplomatic efforts with Tehran fail – and is ready to act “with or without” the backing of the US, officials told the Washington Post.
“Israel wants to seize the moment … If Iran won’t agree to a Libya-style abandonment of its nuclear facilities, Israel is prepared to bomb those facilities – with or without US support. The Biden administration had weighed in its final days whether to support this Israeli ultimatum but decided against it. Now it’s at the top of Trump’s inbox,” the outlet cites US and Israeli officials as saying on 14 February.
The report adds that there are several options on the table, ranging from “gunpoint diplomacy” or a “coercive ultimatum” to “active military support.”
During their meetings last week, US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed “several possible levels of American backing, ranging from active military support for a kinetic strike – such as intelligence, refueling or other assistance – to more limited political backing for a coercive ultimatum,” according to the Washington Post.
The report adds that the US “has already provided Israel with bunker-busting munitions that could severely damage Iranian centrifuges and other uranium-enrichment equipment buried in a mountain fortress in Fordow, near Qom.”
The Washington Post reported earlier this week that US intelligence estimates say Israel is considering strikes on the Iranian nuclear program, which could potentially come this year.
President Trump has recently stated several times that he would prefer a nuclear deal with Iran rather than an attack on the country.
“Everyone thinks Israel, with our help or our approval, will go in and bomb the hell out of them. I would prefer that not happen. I’d much rather see a deal with Iran where we can do a deal – supervise, check it, inspect it and then blow it up or just make sure that there is no more nuclear [facilities],” Trump told Fox News this week.
At the same time, the president has reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said on 13 February that his country will not negotiate under pressure or threats.
“Whoever wants to negotiate with us must stop anti-Iranian policies,” he asserted.
Trump withdrew from the 2015 US–Iranian nuclear deal in 2018 – during his first term – and restored harsh sanctions against Iran. In the summer of 2022, the US and Iran were close to reaching a deal, yet the potential agreement was thwarted by heavy Israeli pressure and the start of foreign-backed unrest and widescale protests in September of that year.
Tehran is subject to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1970, as well as a religious fatwa outlawing the development and use of any form of weapons of mass destruction. Former CIA director William Burns said last month that “we do not see any sign” that Iran is planning to weaponize its nuclear program.
According to CNN, however, Tehran has been working to reinforce its missile program after the Israeli strikes on Iran in October last year, which came as a response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israeli military sites early that month.
https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-re ... ing-report
Nine killed, hundreds of homes bulldozed as Israeli assault on Tulkarem enters 18th day
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced and over two dozen killed across the occupied West Bank over the past three weeks
News Desk
FEB 13, 2025
(Photo credit: AA/Getty Images).
The Israeli army’s deadly assault on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem has entered its 18th day, as Tel Aviv’s forces have continued to displace civilians, destroy infrastructure, and make arrests in the city and elsewhere in the territory.
Video footage from 13 February showed Israeli bulldozers destroying homes in Tulkarem’s Nour Shams Refugee Camp.
Occupation forces continue besieging the eastern neighborhood of the city, specifically Al-Muqata'a Street and Abu Safiya Junction, seizing residential buildings and turning them into military outposts,” WAFA news agency reported on Thursday.
The camp’s Media Committee announced that 10,500 people have been displaced since Israeli forces began the assault on Nour Shams, marking around 80 percent of the camp’s population.
“The camp witnessed a wide-scale arrest campaign that included more than 120 abductions of residents of the camp, as well as the destruction of infrastructure and more than 585 homes and facilities,” the media committee went on to say.
Last week, Israeli forces shot and killed a pregnant woman as she was fleeing Nour Shams with her family.
Tulkarem Camp, north of the city, is also under attack. WAFA reported that Israeli army reinforcements have recently arrived at both camps.
Meanwhile, the siege and assault on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin entered its 24th day on 13 February, as reinforcements made their way to its camp. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and tens of thousands have been displaced since the attack began. At least 25 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces.
Resistance factions in both Jenin and Tulkarem have been announcing daily operations targeting Israeli forces invading their camps.
The Tulkarem Brigade of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Quds Brigades said on Thursday that its fighters “are fighting fierce battles with the occupation forces storming the Manshiyeh axis in Nour Shams Camp, and are showering the enemy forces and sniper positions with heavy volleys of direct bullets, achieving confirmed casualties.”
The Israeli army claims it arrested 90 “terrorists” in the occupied West Bank this week, destroyed dozens of explosive devices, and interrogated “terror suspects,” while confiscating 12 weapons and approximately 50 vehicles.
https://thecradle.co/articles/nine-kill ... s-18th-day
UAE envoy to Washington claims 'no alternative' to ethnic cleansing of Gaza[
Donald Trump’s controversial plan aims to displace the Gaza Strip’s population and grant the US ownership of the enclave
News Desk
FEB 13, 2025
(Photo credit: AP)
The Emirati ambassador to the US said in an interview on 12 February that he does not “see an alternative” to US President Donald Trump’s plan to expel Gaza’s residents, take over the strip, and redevelop it.
When asked by a reporter at the World Government Summit in Dubai if the UAE can find “common ground” with Washington on the matter, Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba said: “We’re gonna try, I think the current approach is going to be difficult, but at the end of the day, we’re all in the solution seeking business. We just don’t know where it’s gonna land yet.”
In response to a question about whether the UAE has a plan or alternative, he said: “Not yet. I don’t see an alternative to what’s being proposed, I really don’t. And so, if someone has one, we’re happy to discuss it, we’re happy to explore it. But it hasn’t surfaced yet.”
Trump announced last week that the US will “take over” Gaza and relocate its population to neighboring countries, claiming that the plan aims to find a safer location for Palestinians while international development teams take charge of reconstructing the battered and besieged strip.
Yet the US president has since stated that Palestinians will not be allowed to return to Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly jumped on board the plan.
Trump has been insisting on the idea of Jordan and Egypt taking in the Palestinian population of the strip, which both Arab states have rejected. Egypt has said that it plans to formulate a reconstruction plan that does not involve displacing Gaza’s residents.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II said that while meeting with Trump earlier this week, he “reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” adding that “This is the unified Arab position.”
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in an interview that any attempt by Israel to deport Palestinians to Jordanian territory will be regarded as a “declaration of war.”
The UAE ambassador’s comments come as there has been concern over a potential collapse of the ceasefire in Gaza.
The Emirati government had reportedly been in talks earlier this year for a solution to manage post-war affairs in the strip.
https://thecradle.co/articles/uae-envoy ... ng-of-gaza
(I got the alternative Mr Ambassador, destruction of the Zionist entity.)
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The IDF Didn’t Just Target Hospitals, They Destroyed Individual Medical Machines
The goal was always to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable in order to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Caitlin Johnstone
February 14, 2025
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Doctors Without Borders emergency coordinator Caroline Seguin reports that lifesaving medical equipment inside the hospitals in northern Gaza has been methodically destroyed, “smashed to pieces, one by one, to make sure no medical care could be provided anymore.”
“You have to ask: What is the motivation of such action? These machines are made to save people’s lives, mothers, fathers, children,” Seguin writes.
But we all know the motivation. The motivation is to make the Gaza Strip unlivable for Palestinians.
I mean, what excuses could the Israel apologists possibly produce for this one? Were Hamas hiding in the ventilators? Were the MRI machines being used as human shields? Was there a weapons stockpile in the defibrillator? Was the incubator moving in ways that made IDF troops feel unsafe? What’s the hasbara line on this, exactly?
Doesn’t look like there is one. After all the lies about Israel’s reasons for systematically destroying Gaza’s healthcare facilities, they’ve now dropped all pretenses and are openly targeting medical equipment itself for destruction. The goal was always to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable in order to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
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Those who say “Fuck anyone who didn’t vote for Kamala” because of this or that ugly domestic policy Trump advances simply ignored Gaza during the Biden administration. They ignored it with their eyes, their minds, and their hearts.
They avoided looking at the gruesome video footage of dismembered children and burning bodies. They avoided thinking about the daily massacres and imagining what it would be like if it was their own neighborhood being incinerated. They avoided feeling the unpleasant feelings you will necessarily experience if you allow your eyes and your mind to behold these things with unwavering attention.
They’ve been living in a different universe than those of us who have been looking at these horrors and contemplating them and feeling them. That’s the one and only reason they can say “Fuck anyone who didn’t vote for Kamala”. If they hadn’t spent more than a year keeping their eyes, minds and hearts tightly screwed shut, it would never occur to them to say such a thing.
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An important point that’s getting lost in the conversation about the Trump administration’s recent Ukraine moves is that polling now shows a majority of Ukrainians want the war to end. They don’t want to fight anymore.
That should be the end of the conversation right there. There’s nothing left to debate. The very last argument the proxy warriors had — “The Ukrainians want to keep fighting” — died months ago. If you still want this proxy war to continue even after the Ukrainians themselves want it to stop, then you’re a monster. You want Ukrainians to keep throwing their lives into the wood chipper of an unwinnable war against their will just so you can feel nice feelings instead of uncomfortable feelings. You’re a psycho. Everyone should ignore everything you have to say about the world.
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The Trump administration has frozen funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA front which facilitates US regime change operations around the world. This follows the stripping of USAID, another US soft power operation. It remains to be seen how much of this is a lasting policy shift and how much is just a restructuring of the imperial manipulation machine.
I was excited to flaunt my told-you-sos at all the empire simps on social media who’ve been calling me a Russian propagandist for saying Ukraine is an unwinnable proxy war that should never have been started — then I realized most of them are probably offline now that they’re not getting paid.
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I’m still getting dopey Trumpists telling me their president is making heroic efforts to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians in ways no other president has. Yeah dipshit, he’s doing it by giving Israel literally everything it’s ever wanted by removing the Palestinians. That’s not solving a problem or achieving peace, that’s just using force to declare a winner and taking everything from the declared loser. It’s like saying you resolved an argument by murdering one of the participants. It’s like saying you can fix racism by eliminating everyone of a different race.
Trump’s whole plan is “No more Palestinians means no more Israel-Palestine conflict!” How stupid do you have to be to believe that’s what peace and justice looks like? You can end ANY dispute by eliminating the other side, but that doesn’t equal peace. In this case, it equals giving a genocidal ethnostate everything it’s ever wanted, which advocates of peace and justice have spent generations trying to stop.
(More...)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/02 ... -machines/
(@CherylWroteIt) February 20, 2025
Doctors in Gaza who were kidnapped by Israel and put under arrest:
