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A pilot with the Israeli armed forces said the military implemented the Hannibal Protocol, which involves the killing of enemy-held captives, during a surprise attack by Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7 to prevent Israeli civilians from being taken to Gaza as hostages.

Reports in Israeli media about the high number of civilian casualties during Hamas' cross-border assault and Israeli military helicopters shooting both Palestinian fighters and civilians at a music festival near the Gaza Strip have led to debates on whether the army applied a doctrine known as the "Hannibal Protocol."

"At one point, the army appears to have implemented the 'Hannibal Protocol', which involves the killing of prisoners"

The debate continues about whether on Oct. 7, the Israeli army also killed Israelis.

Israeli fighter pilot Lieut. Col. Nof Erez told Haaretz that Israel… pic.twitter.com/yCnxJXENvu

— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) November 21, 2023

In an interview with the daily Haaretz, Lt. Col. Nof Erez drew attention to the possibility that Israeli forces responding to Hamas' attack might have implemented the directive, under which Israelis at risk of being taken captive are killed by friendly forces.

'Mass Hannibal'

According to Erez, the Hannibal Protocol, which Israel is believed to have suspended in 2016, was formulated by the Israeli army 30 years ago based on events in Lebanon.

"The Hannibal Protocol is intentional, and if the decision was made to implement it, it is carried out intentionally. If the captives were unintentionally shot, that's another matter," the pilot said on the Oct. 7 attack, when Hamas fighters infiltrated areas surrounding the strip, including the festival near the settlement of Re'im.

Erez said that on that day, it is unknown whether Israeli warplanes and drones hit hostages while firing.

"The Hannibal (Protocol), for which we have been running drills for the past 20 years, concerns a single vehicle with hostages in it. You know which part of the fence it goes through, which way on the road it heads to, and even which route it takes," he said.

"What we’ve seen here is mass Hannibal. There were many gaps in the fences. There were thousands of people in many different vehicles, both with and without hostages," he added.

Erez, who coordinated a helicopter mission to evacuate wounded during Israel's ongoing attacks on Gaza, said: "It was an impossible task to identify and do what was allowed."

"I know that whoever held the weapons systems, both the drones and the fighter pilots, did whatever they could without coordinating with the ground forces, because these forces were not yet there."

Erez was reportedly dismissed from duty on Oct. 31 after criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A military spokesperson said Erez was removed after expressing himself on "political matters" while actively serving.

Israeli press reports

Citing police sources, Haaretz reported on Sunday that an Israeli helicopter also shot Israeli revelers at the festival while responding to the Hamas attack.

In the assessment of senior Israeli security officials, based on interrogation records of Hamas members and a police investigation into the incident, it was stated that Hamas did not have prior knowledge of the music festival, where 364 people were killed.

The report included information from the police investigation, stating that most of the festival attendees managed to escape because the party was stopped half an hour before the first guns were fired.

Another Israeli newspaper, the Yedioth Ahronoth, also reported on the military's aerial response to the Hamas attack on the festival.

"The infiltrating forces were instructed in recent days to march slowly into the communities and positions, or within them, and in no case to run, in order to make the pilots think they were dealing with Israelis. This deception worked for a while, until the Apache pilots realized they had to bypass all restrictions.

"When pilots realized it was difficult to distinguish between terrorists and Israelis, some decided independently at around 9 a.m. to use artillery against the terrorists without obtaining permission from their superiors," said the Hebrew-language daily.

Censorship on Gaza news

In a warning to domestic media after the Haaretz report, the country's police force denied that there was any "indication that any air activity in the region harmed civilians."

The statement by the Israel Police Spokesperson's Office said actions by the military at the festival were not assessed in the investigation.

Despite this, the statement contained assessments of the result of the aerial activities at the festival site.

It urged media outlets to show responsibility in their news reporting and rely only on official sources.

Separately, the military's censorship unit, affiliated with the Military Intelligence Directorate of the Israeli army, sent a letter to the press on Oct. 26, imposing restrictions on news related to Gaza.

They said all news and visuals concerning the course of the war in the blockaded strip and activities of the Israeli army should be sent to their "censorship unit" before publication.

In footage broadcasted by Israel's Channel 12 television on Nov. 11, an Israeli journalist reporting from Barzilai Hospital in the city of Ashkelon, located in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, stated that due to the censorship announced after Oct. 7, he could not provide information on the condition of the soldiers brought there.

"We must say that all the information we conveyed from in front of Barzilai Hospital has been censored by the Israeli army. We can say that wounded soldiers have arrived here, but we are not allowed to speak about them until permission is granted," the reporter said.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks in the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas early last month,

Authorities in Gaza said Monday that the death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on the enclave since Oct. 7 has jumped to more than 14,100, including 5,840 children and 3,920 women.

The Israeli death toll, meanwhile, is around 1,200, according to official figures.