According to Uncaptured Media's Dan Cohen, officials of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have implemented the Hannibal Directive, a classified Israeli military protocol that involves intentionally killing Israel's own hostages in order to prevent Israeli soldiers from being taken captive.
On January 15, Hamas published a video, viewable below, of Israeli captive Noa Argamani revealing that Israeli airstrikes killed fellow captive Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky.
Argamani says she was injured and got trapped under rubble for two whole days following Israeli missile strikes on a house, which killed Sharabi. Svirsky, according to Argamani, was bombed while being transported in an ambulance.
"Stop this madness and bring us home to our families," Argamani is pleading with the government of Benjamin Netanyahu – watch the video below:
(Related: Iran just proved that it is capable of striking Israel with "Kheibar Shekan" ballistic missiles.)
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Argamani is not the only Israeli captive to report this kind of thing. Numerous others say that they, too, became injured or suffered some other terrorizing incident at the hands of IDF soldiers as they continue to relentlessly bomb the Gaza Strip.
On Dec. 23, Hamas announced that airstrikes had killed 60 hostages at that point. Israel claimed 20 of these deaths.
"The government's decision to attack Gaza despite the presence of hostages in the bombed sites can be considered an extension of the 'Hannibal' procedure – that is, an attempt to thwart the continuation of the captivity even at the cost of risking the lives of the hostages," commented Israeli sociologist and military specialist Yagil Levy, the suggestion being that Israel is, in fact, trying to kill its own hostages as part of the Hannibal Directive.
"The obvious explanation is that the right perceives the pressure to stop the fighting as endangering the pursuit of victory and revenge in Gaza, and therefore the lives of the abductees are another reasonable sacrifice that must be made."
Levy also pointed to a 2016 report from the state comptroller's office that describes "enthusiasm among soldiers and junior commanders for the idea of deliberately harming a hostage to prevent his abduction alive," this referring, of course, to IDF soldiers and junior commanders.
"We are experiencing the flip side of the Shalit case," said an unnamed figure who was involved in the Gilad Shalit exchange to Israeli media outlet Shomrim about Israel's alleged use of the Hannibal Directive, referring to a 2011 deal in which Shalit was exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.
"Hamas expected this to be a repeat of the Shalit case. They thought that they would kidnap Israelis and that we would cave in. I believe that it will not happen quickly – if at all. The State of Israel has implemented the Hannibal Directive on the whole of the Gaza Strip (since the current conflict erupted), based on the understanding that the moment we release prisoners, we are opening the door for countless more abduction."
Concerning the 240 families involved who are demanding a hostage exchange, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to be waging a "psychological war" against an overwhelming majority of them.
"As it becomes clear that Israel is attempting to kill its own captives in order to eliminate the only internal obstacle towards an open-ended war and direct occupation of the Gaza Strip, it appears that a fierce struggle led by their families is the only force that has any possibility of challenging those plans and saving their lives," Cohen writes.
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