Nearly one year ago, the Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin was captured by
Hamas fighters in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, in the middle
of Operation Protective Edge. He was taken a few minutes into a
ceasefire declared unilaterally by Israel, without any participation
from any Palestinian groups: under the terms Israel had negotiated with
itself, its soldiers were still permitted to search for so-called
‘terror tunnels’ during the ceasefire, and this is what Goldin had been
doing. His capture triggered something called the ‘Hannibal Directive': a
secret policy that requires Israeli forces to do anything possible to
prevent its soldiers being captured (and then becoming the object of a
media crusade, to be released in a costly prisoner swap), even if it
means putting the soldier’s life at risk. The IDF insists that this does
not mean it will intentionally try to kill captured soldiers, but the
world learned exactly what the Hannibal Directive looks like in Rafah.
Almost immediately, the town was blanketed in indiscriminate air and
artillery strikes. A brigade commander on the ground was recorded
yelling into his field radio: ‘Stop the shooting! You’re shooting like
retards! You’ll kill one another!’ He didn’t seem to understand that
that was the point. Hadar Goldin’s body was never found, but it’s
assumed that he died in the bombardment. So did 190 Palestinians.
