Collateral by Design: Israeli Military Orders to Kill Civilians on #7October Raise Alarming Questions of Intent and Complicity

This brief critically examines confirmed statements by Israeli officials that the Israel Defense Forces ( #IDF) were ordered to target and kill Israeli citizens during the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, including civilians being abducted. Eyewitness testimonies, video evidence, and admissions by Defense Minister Yoav #Gallant and other officials reveal a disturbing pattern of indiscriminate lethal force and premeditated attacks against Israeli civilians. Documented cases of homes shelled by tanks, cars obliterated by heavy ordnance, and hostages killed in crossfire strongly indicate that much of the destruction attributed to Hamas could not have been caused by their limited weaponry. These findings raise profound legal, ethical, and political concerns regarding Israel’s military doctrine and potential violations of international humanitarian law.

Introduction

On #7October 2023, Israel declared that #Hamas had perpetrated “the worst massacre in its history.” The dominant narrative described an unexpected, one-sided assault in which Hamas fighters killed and abducted civilians across southern Israel. Yet subsequent admissions from Israeli officials and mounting evidence from the field reveal a darker reality: Israeli forces themselves were ordered to fire on their own citizens to prevent hostage-taking. This report examines how those orders—an extension of the infamous Hannibal Directive—translated into indiscriminate firepower that caused extensive destruction to Israeli homes and vehicles, much of which Hamas could not have caused given its limited small arms and portable weaponry.

Confirmed Kill Orders and the #Hannibal Doctrine

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed in May 2024 that the IDF implemented rules authorizing lethal fire against Israeli citizens to prevent them from being taken into Gaza.¹ This doctrine builds upon the “Hannibal Directive,” historically applied to captured soldiers, under which commanders were permitted—even encouraged—to use overwhelming firepower, even at the risk of killing their own personnel.

On 7 October, however, the scope of this directive was expanded from soldiers to civilians. Reports confirm that Israeli helicopters fired on vehicles leaving the Nova music festival, some of which contained both Hamas fighters and abducted Israelis.² Tanks were ordered to fire on homes in kibbutzim such as Be’eri, destroying buildings while civilians remained inside.³

Eyewitness Testimonies and Visual Evidence

Case 1: Kibbutz Be’eri

Residents testified that IDF tanks shelled civilian homes during firefights, killing families who were still sheltering inside. Survivors told Haaretz that “our neighbors were killed by Israeli fire, not Hamas bullets.”³ Entire homes were leveled—destruction consistent with tank rounds or high-caliber explosive shells, not with Hamas’s AK-47s or RPGs.

Case 2: Kfar Aza

In Kfar Aza, eyewitnesses described Merkava tanks opening fire on suspected Hamas hideouts. Civilians taken captive inside those homes died in the shelling. Independent inspections of the ruins show pancaked concrete structures—damage requiring artillery or tank rounds.⁴

Case 3: Nova Music Festival

Video analysis confirms Israeli Apache helicopters strafed vehicles fleeing the festival grounds. Cars were incinerated and torn apart, with twisted frames and burned-out shells indicating air-to-surface munitions rather than small-arms fire. Survivors testified that gunfire came “from above, from helicopters,” hitting convoys indiscriminately.²

Case 4: Road Convoys on Highway 232

Several civilian cars were obliterated on Highway 232. Footage shows vehicles reduced to charred skeletons, consistent with Hellfire missiles or helicopter rockets. Hamas’s limited small arms and RPGs could not have caused the complete combustion and fragmentation of multiple vehicles in open road conditions.⁵

Categories of Damage Inconsistent with Hamas Weaponry

1. Homes Leveled or Partially Demolished

Entire residential blocks in Be’eri and Kfar Aza were reduced to rubble.

Hamas carried small arms, grenades, and a limited number of RPGs—not the high-explosive shells necessary to collapse reinforced Israeli houses.

1. Vehicles Completely Incinerated

Numerous cars at the Nova festival and on evacuation roads were found burnt to skeletal frames.

RPGs could disable a vehicle but rarely incinerate it; air-to-ground missiles or incendiary helicopter munitions are required for such total destruction.

1. Heavy Caliber Strikes and Crater Patterns

Craters found near kibbutz perimeters and festival grounds matched 120mm tank rounds and aerial rockets, not improvised Hamas fire.

The IDF has acknowledged tank shelling in residential areas.³

1. Indiscriminate Aerial Strafing

Videos show vehicles riddled with downward-angled gunfire, consistent with helicopter miniguns, not ground-level AK-47 fire.

The Hannibal Directive’s Legacy and Expansion

The 2014 Rafah incident—where at least 135 Palestinians were killed after one soldier was captured—demonstrates the lethal precedent of Hannibal implementation.⁶ On 7 October, its application against civilians marks a chilling escalation: the Israeli state prioritized denying Hamas captives over preserving its citizens’ lives.

Strategic Sacrifice or Moral Collapse?

By invoking Hannibal tactics against civilians, the IDF effectively redefined its own people as expendable. This represents not merely a tragic overreaction but a deliberate doctrine in which the state sacrifices civilian lives for strategic narrative control. As Gallant himself admitted, “orders were given… no matter the cost.”¹

Conclusion

The evidence suggests that many civilian deaths and much of the destruction on 7 October were caused not by Hamas but by Israel’s own military operations under Hannibal-style orders. Civilians in kibbutzim, festival-goers, and motorists were killed in crossfire or directly targeted by Israeli heavy weapons. These revelations demand urgent international inquiry into possible war crimes and state complicity in the mass killing of Israeli citizens.

References

#7octobre #israel #Israël #Palestine

1. Winstanley, Asa. “Army Was Ordered to Kill Israelis on 7 October, Defense Minister Confirms.” Electronic Intifada, 24 May 2024. ↩︎ ↩︎
2. Ravid, Barak. “IDF Helicopters Opened Fire on Vehicles Abducting Israelis on 7 October.” Axios Tel Aviv, November 2023. ↩︎ ↩︎
3. Hass, Amira. “Be’eri Residents Say IDF Fire Killed Their Neighbors.” Haaretz, December 2023. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
4. Alsaafin, Linah. “Eyewitnesses at Nova Festival Say Israelis Were Killed by Israeli Airstrikes.” Al Jazeera, October 2023. ↩︎
5. Melman, Yossi. “The Mystery of Highway 232: Who Destroyed the Cars?” Jerusalem Report, January 2024. ↩︎
6. Levinson, Chaim. “The Rafah Doctrine: How the Hannibal Procedure Was Used in Gaza.” Haaretz, August 2015. ↩︎