The Hannibal Procedure
For years, the 'Hannibal procedure' was a well-kept army secret - an order that said the abduction of soldiers by enemy forces should be thwarted even if this entails shooting the abductees. Though now officially abolished, the implications of this controversial procedure still haunts many.
In the summer of 1986, three senior officers met at Northern Command headquarters and drew up one of the most controversial operational orders in the history of the Israel Defense Forces. The three were the head of Northern Command at the time, Major General Yossi Peled, the command's operations officer, Colonel Gabi Ashkenazi (now the deputy chief of staff) and the command's intelligence officer, Colonel Yaakov Amidror, whose last post in the army before retiring was head of the National Defense College. The order they formulated had to do with the rules for opening fire in cases in which soldiers were being abducted: "During an abduction, the major mission is to rescue our soldiers from the abductors even at the price of harming or wounding our soldiers. Light-arms fire is to be used in order to bring the abductors to the ground or to stop them. If the vehicle or the abductors do not stop, single-shot (sniper) fire should be aimed at them, deliberately, in order to hit the abductors, even if this means hitting our soldiers. In any event, everything will be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape."
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