Analysts observed that there have been no reports about it from major news outlets like CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, BBC, Reuters, Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal and NBC News. Instead, most of these outlets focused on misinformation such as Hamas fighters "raping" Israeli women or the existence of "beheaded babies" – false claims that U.S. President Joe Biden even repeated.
The only major English-language outlets that have reported on the news are the Guardian and the Independent. However, both seemingly downplayed the fact as they headlined their stories with "Israeli army may have risked civilian lives by invoking its 'controversial' procedure known as the Hannibal," for example.
"The comprehensive Haaretz investigation should have prompted a reaction from the mainstream U.S. reporters who are stationed in Israel. American journalists should have been cultivating their sources since Oct. 7 and be ready to at least match the Haaretz article. Instead, the only response so far has been a panel hosted by Piers Morgan and a Mehdi Hasan/Bassem Youssef podcast," Mondoweiss columnist James North reported. Story coverage has been mainly by alternative media outlets, including Middle East Monitor, People's Dispatch, Middle East Eye and Truthout, among others.
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Not only has the media refused to pick up the Hannibal order confirmation, but recent research also shows that Western corporate outlets regularly devalue the lives of Palestinians. According to the study, for every two Palestinian deaths, Palestinians are mentioned once. Meanwhile, for every Israeli death, Israelis are mentioned eight times, which is 16 times more per death than that of Palestinians.
In addition, emotive terms for the killing of civilians, like "slaughter," "massacre" and "horrific," are used exclusively for Israelis. In particular, the term "slaughter" was used by major Western outlets to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians at a 60-to-1 ratio while "massacre" was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125-to-2.
The IDF formulated the Hannibal Directive during Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon in 1986 after several abductions of IDF soldiers and the subsequent, very controversial, prisoner exchanges. It was kept as a secret and was never published to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. It was revised several times before officially being abandoned in 2016. (Related: Israeli military investigation reveals many Oct. 7 Israeli casualties were caused by IDF rather than Hamas.)
"The use of the Directive during the Oct. 7 attack to prevent the abduction of Israeli citizens represented an escalation of the supposedly abandoned policy and implies that the IDF should kill any Israelis rather than allow them to fall into the hands of Hamas," the Haaretz July 7 article included.
According to the official narrative of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, the "Al-Aqsa Flood" incursion was an unexpected and unprecedently barbaric attack by Hamas that killed 1,222 people. It provided the necessary justification for war, long sought with endless provocations against the Palestinians, to annihilate Hamas and carry out a genocide in Gaza.
Biden sends team to Middle East to hammer out ceasefire framework as he calls for end to Israel-Gaza war
Biden further confuses the public with his stand on Israel's war with Gaza. The POTUS has been publicly expressing his full-fledged support for Netanyahu's war but denied direct involvement in the genocidal attacks on the enclave. Back in April, Congress also approved $17 billion in military aid to Israel under a $95 billion foreign military assistance package in April but now he is calling for the conflict in the region to end.
The Biden administration has faced international criticism for its continuing support of Israel in the face of growing civilian casualties.
However, the president said on Thursday that the Israel-Gaza war must end now and Israel must not occupy the enclave after the war, telling reporters his ceasefire framework had been agreed on by both Israel and Hamas but there were still gaps to close. "That framework is now agreed on by both Israel and Hamas. So, I sent my team to the region to hammer out the details," Biden said in a news conference. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Bill Burns and U.S. Middle East envoy Brett McGurk were in the Middle East this week meeting with regional counterparts to discuss the ceasefire deal.
"These are difficult, complex issues. There are still gaps to close. We’re making progress. The trend is positive. I'm determined to get this deal done and bring an end to this war, which should end now," Biden said.
Netanyahu has insisted the deal must not prevent Israel from resuming fighting until its war objectives are met. He still vowed to annihilate Hamas. Netanyahu's office said on Wednesday he was committed to securing a Gaza ceasefire deal provided Israel's red lines were respected.
Biden also told the reporters in the press conference that Israel must not occupy Gaza while also offering some criticism of Israel’s war cabinet, saying "Israel occasionally was less than cooperative." He also expressed disappointment at some of his steps not having succeeded in Gaza, citing the planned winding down of the U.S. military's humanitarian pier off the coast of Gaza as an example. "I was hopeful that would be more successful," he said.
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