Conflit Israelo-Palestinien

Not one jeep but at least three different Israel Defense Forces vehicles. And not just one team of soldiers but at least three different teams who were convinced that it is both permissible and proper to order wounded Palestinians – unarmed and mostly not on Israel's wanted list – to strip in their presence and then climb onto the burning-hot hood of their jeep, desperately holding on for dear life, while being transported to the army's detention and interrogation site.

The video clip that went viral globally last week showed a wounded man, Mujahed Abadi, lying bleeding and helpless on the hood of a jeep driven by his captors and humiliators. He was unconditionally released shortly afterward and taken to a hospital in Jenin, where he is still being treated for his wounds. Abadi was not armed and was not wanted by the IDF. He was shot, beaten and taken by the troops, for no apparent reason, as his immediate release attests. Maybe the soldiers were bored? Maybe they were bent on revenge as has been common in the army since October 7? Maybe they decided to used the wounded as human shields?

The grim clip generated considerable resonance – it's not easy to watch a wounded, almost-naked man sprawled on a broiling-hot surface – though much less in Israel, of course. For its part, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit tried, as usual, to cover up, whitewash and play down the incident. "The conduct seen in the video is not consistent with the IDF's directives of what is expected of its soldiers," it said in a statement, adding, "The event is being investigated and will be dealt with accordingly."

While the army is "investigating" and "dealing accordingly" with all due energy – meaning in army lingo absolutely not lifting a finger – we visited the scene this week, high up in Jenin's Al-Jabriat neighborhood, which overlooks the city's refugee camp to the south. A field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, Abdulkarim Sadi, told us that in the investigation he conducted after the incident, it wasn't just one wounded man who was subjected to this abasement by soldiers, on June 22. In fact, at least four men were forced to lie on the hoods of three jeeps. Now there is a suspicion that what was captured in the video of Abadi wasn't an anomaly but a regular practice, dubbed the wounded transportation procedure.

The Jabriat neighborhood is new, spacious and relatively affluent, inhabited by people who became fed up with the hardscrabble life in the densely crowded, militant camp, and were somehow able to afford to build a home on the hill that looms over it. The homes are large for the most part, and the atmosphere is quiet here – certainly as compared to what goes on below, day and night, in the camp that has sprouted there.

Azmi Husaniya, 77, a veteran of the camp who tells us proudly that he worked for years as a welder in Israel, lives with his family in a new but as-yet unfinished home on the hill. On Friday evening two weeks ago, a few relatives and friends of two of his sons from the camp decided to spend the night in the Husaniyas' tranquil and relatively safe home. They spread themselves out in the guest room we saw this week, and slept on the floor and the sofas. It was a quiet night, of the sort that is a rarity in the nearby camp.

At 9:30 the next morning one of the guests was awakened by a phone call. "Forces are surrounding the house you are in," he was warned. The others got up quickly and immediately tuned into the camp's news websites to get updated. Indeed, the Israeli army was there, surrounding them.

The first to go out and see what was happening were Mujahed Abadi, 23, and Majad al-Azami, Husaniya's 28-year-old son. The two had barely stepped out the door when they came under a hail of gunfire. At first they had no idea where the shooting was coming from. They weren't armed, it should be noted, and neither were their friends, according to their account. The snipers, it turned out, had taken up positions in an apartment building a few dozen meters away. They shot at them from one of the building's upper floors.

Majad was hit in the stomach and arm but somehow made it back to the house, bleeding. Mujahed was wounded in the shoulder and leg, and collapsed in the yard of the house. Hearing the shooting, Hashem Selith, 27, and Mohammed Nubani, 24, tried to flee from the house while they still could. From the yard they ran toward the olive grove, located below on the slope of the hill. Mohammed jumped down into the grove and was unhurt, but Hashem was shot in the leg and fell from a height of some three meters onto the ground below the house. Despite this, he tried to reach the grove before being shot again in the right leg and collapsing. Mohammed was by his side. The two decided to lay low, in place, because of the gunfire. They lay there for about half an hour, and then spotted an army jeep hurtling toward them. They were sure that they were going to be run over and killed.

The jeep stopped short of them. The soldiers inside didn't get out, only barked at the two, in broken Arabic, to strip down to their underpants. They were then ordered via a loudspeaker to climb onto the jeep. Hashem tried to tell the soldiers that the metal hood was burning hot because of the engine and the blazing sun, but that happened not to be of interest to them. They threatened: "Climb up or we'll shoot you."

Mohammed and Hashem got onto the jeep, almost completely naked, and lay on the hood. The vehicle began moving down the hill. To keep from falling off, they held on with all their might to the metal grating covering the windshield. The vehicle traveled a few hundred meters to the home of the al-Dukum family, a tall building which the IDF had evacuated and seized for use as a command post and a detention and interrogation facility. The two were taken off the jeep and a soldier in front of the house handcuffed them. Shin Bet security service agents were already on the second floor, where Hashem and Mohammed were taken. An IDF paramedic examined and bound Hashem's leg wound. Because of his injury, Hashem got to sit on a chair; Mohammed was forced to kneel on the floor. The interrogators only wanted to know whether there were weapons in the house they had stayed at. They said there weren't.

All this time, Mujahed was lying wounded outside the Husaniya house, hiding behind Hashem's jeep, which was parked there. After about three hours, an army vehicle approached and the soldiers ordered him to get up. He said he was wounded and couldn't stand. The soldiers rammed Hashem's jeep with their jeep, until it was a few centimeters from Mujahed's head. He was afraid he would die.

Summoning his last ounce of strength, a wounded Mujahed got up. Four soldiers grabbed him by the arms and legs to force him to lay on the hood of their jeep, but he fell from their hands and dropped to the ground. The second attempt was successful. Driving toward the home of the al-Dukum family, the soldiers alternately speeded up and slowed down, in order to make Mujahed fall off, he later told B'Tselem's Sadi. The viral video only shows him draped over the hood, as the vehicle forced two Palestinian ambulances that came from the other direction off to the side of the road. But he managed to hold on and was left off at the al-Dukum house.

The third incident: As all this was going on, Samir Dabaya, 29, who lives alone in a house on the hillside above the Jenin camp, heard the shooting and decided to make a run for it to his parents' home, a few dozen meters away. As he left, however, he heard shots and decided not to endanger his parents, so he switched direction and headed for the olive grove. He noticed a drone hovering above, and a few minutes later he was shot and wounded in his arm and stomach. An army vehicle sped toward him and its passengers, too, forced Samir to lie on its hood. The incident was documented by a neighbor. Samir can be seen in a T-shirt and underpants, gripping the bars of the jeep as tightly as he can with his left hand, to keep from falling off. Unlike the two other wounded men, he was lying horizontally across the hood, with legs bent. He was taken to the al-Dukum house and then quickly released; he is still recovering in Jenin's Ibn Sina Hospital.

Samir Dabaya on the hood of an Israeli army vehicle.

Seeing the seriousness of Majad's condition, soldiers summoned a helicopter, which took him to Rambam Health Care Campus, in Haifa. His father, Azmi, tells us this week that he has no idea how he is; he hasn't been allowed to visit his son or even speak to him by phone. A lawyer he hired was permitted to visit Majad – once; he informed his father that he was in stable condition. The other son, Ahmed, remains in detention. Azmi lost his third son in the second intifada, when the family still lived in the refugee camp.

Asked for comment, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit provided Haaretz with the following statement: "During activity intended to arrest wanted individuals in Wadi Bruqin on Saturday, June 22, IDF forces that were under fire evacuated arrestees who had been wounded during an exchange of gunfire, so as to provide them with medical care. The wanted men were evacuated on the front hood of the soldiers' vehicle in violation of orders and procedures, for treatment by the Red Crescent. The behavior exhibited by the soldiers in the video clip is not in keeping with what the IDF expected of its soldiers, and is currently under investigation."

A Wrangler Rubicon Jeep, shiny and white, straight out of the wrapper, with no license plates, barrels out of the camp toward the Husaniya house. Hashem Selith emerges from it, groaning with pain. The leg with the two deep gunshot wounds is bandaged; fortunately neither bullet struck a bone. He recounts everything that happened, how he was shot and then forced by his captors to climb onto their jeep.

Hashem took part in the camp's resistance forces until he was arrested and imprisoned for three years, between 2018 and 2021. Since then he's hung up his boots, as the saying goes, and the Shin Bet surely knows this. The fact is that he too was released immediately after the incident.

"I have already paid my price," he says, with a wan smile that cannot conceal his pain.

>###No one dies complete

>After a missile strike, everyone searches in the debris to put their loved ones back together. Mothers search for their children's heads to match with their bodies. To be a good mother in the rest of the world is to feed your children good food and keep them warm, but to be a good mother in Gaza is to bury your children whole.

>Even two months later, I am still searching for the remains of my friend Israa's body. I regularly ask for updates from my family to see if they have found more parts of her yet.

>If you were killed at the beginning of the genocide, you could be buried properly, but now there is no official graveyard. Even the mass graveyards are being bulldozed by Israeli soldiers; it's like they want to kill us again and again, to make sure we are completely dead.

'There was crazy hysteria, and decisions started being made without verified information': Documents and testimonies obtained by Haaretz reveal the Hannibal operational order, which directs the use of force to prevent soldiers being taken into captivity, was employed at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well ***

Gaza Division operations and airstrikes in the first hours of October 7 were based on limited information. The first long moments after the Hamas attack was launched were chaotic. Reports were coming in, with their significance not always clear. When their meaning was understood, it was realized that something horrific had taken place.

Communication networks could not keep up with the flow of information, as was the case for soldiers sending these reports. However, the message conveyed at 11:22 A.M. across the Gaza Division network was understood by everyone. "Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza" was the order.

At this point, the IDF was not aware of the extent of kidnapping along the Gaza border, but it did know that many people were involved. Thus, it was entirely clear what that message meant, and what the fate of some of the kidnapped people would be.

This was not the first order given by the division with the intent of foiling kidnapping even at the expense of the lives of the kidnapped, a procedure known in the army as the "Hannibal procedure."

Documents obtained by Haaretz, as well as testimonies of soldiers, mid-level and senior IDF officers, reveal a host of orders and procedures laid down by the Gaza Division, Southern Command and the IDF General Staff up to the afternoon hours of that day, showing how widespread this procedure was, from the first hours following the attack and at various points along the border.

Haaretz does not know whether or how many civilians and soldiers were hit due to these procedures, but the cumulative data indicates that many of the kidnapped people were at risk, exposed to Israeli gunfire, even if they were not the target.

At 6:43 A.M., at which time rocket barrages were launched at Israel and thousands of Hamas operatives were attacking army strongholds and the division's observation and communications capabilities, the division's commander Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld declared that "the Philistines have invaded."

This is the procedure when an enemy invades Israeli territory, upon which a division commander can assume extraordinary authority, including the employment of heavy fire inside Israeli territory, in order to block an enemy raid.

A very senior IDF source confirmed to Haaretz that the Hannibal procedure was employed on October 7, adding that this was not used by the divisional commander. Who did give the order? This, said the source, will perhaps be established by post-war investigations.

In any case, says a defense official who is familiar with the October 7 operations at the Gaza Division, in the morning hours "no one knew what was going on outside." He says that Rosenfeld was in the war room, not emerging, "while outside a world war was raging."

"Everyone was shocked by the number of terrorists who had penetrated the base. Even in our nightmares, we didn't have plans for such an attack. No one had a clue about the number of people kidnapped or where army forces were. There was crazy hysteria, with decisions made without any verified information," he continued.

One of these decisions was made at 7:18 A.M., when an observation post at the Yiftah outpost reported that someone had been kidnapped at the Erez border crossing, adjacent to the IDF's liaison office. "Hannibal at Erez" came the command from divisional headquarters, "dispatch a Zik." The Zik is an unmanned assault drone, and the meaning of this command was clear.

This wasn't the last time that such an order was heard over the communications network. Over the next half hour, the division realized that Hamas terrorists had managed to kill and abduct soldiers serving at the crossing and at the adjacent base. Then, at 7:41 A.M., it happened again: Hannibal at Erez, an assault on the crossing and the base, just so that no more soldiers be taken. Such commands were given later as well.

The Erez border crossing was not the only place this happened. Information obtained by Haaretz and confirmed by the army shows that throughout that morning, the Hannibal procedure was employed at two other locations penetrated by terrorists: the Re'im army base, where the divisional headquarters were located, and the Nahal Oz outpost in which female spotters were based. This did not prevent the kidnapping of seven of them or the killing of 15 other spotters, as well as 38 other soldiers.

Over the next few hours, division headquarters started putting the pieces of the puzzle together, realizing the extent of the Hamas attack, but missing the invasion of Kibbutz Nir Oz, which the first army forces reached only after the terrorists had left. Regarding the frequency of employing the Hannibal procedure, it seems that nothing changed. Thus, for example, at 10:19 A.M. a report reached divisional headquarters indicating that a Zik had attacked the Re'im base.

Three minutes later, another such report arrived. At that time, Shaldag commando forces were already on the base fighting the terrorists. To this day, it's not clear whether one of them was hurt in the drone attack. What is known is that over the communications network there was a message asking everyone to make sure no soldier was outdoors on the base, since IDF forces were about to enter and drive out or kill remaining terrorists.

The decision to conduct attacks inside outposts, says a senior defense official, will haunt senior commanders all their lives. "Anyone making such a decision knew that our combatants in the area could be hit as well."

But such attacks took place, it turns out, not only inside outposts or bases. At 10:32 A.M., a new order was issued, according to which all battalions in the area were ordered to fire mortars in the direction of the Gaza Strip. Internal discussions in the army noted that this order, attributed to Brig. Gen. Rosenfeld, was heavily criticized, since at that time, the IDF did not have a complete picture of all the forces in the area, including soldiers and civilians. Some of these were in open areas or in woods along the border, trying to hide from the terrorists.

At that point, the army did not know the number of people who had been kidnapped. "We thought they numbered dozens at that stage," a military source told Haaretz. Firing mortars at the Gaza Strip would endanger them as well. Furthermore, another order given at 11:22 A.M., according to which no vehicle would be allowed to return to Gaza, took this a step further.

"Everyone knew by then that such vehicles could be carrying kidnapped civilians or soldiers," a source in Southern Command told Haaretz. "There was no case in which a vehicle carrying kidnapped people was knowingly attacked, but you couldn't really know if there were any such people in a vehicle. I can't say there was a clear instruction, but everyone knew what it meant to not let any vehicles return to Gaza."

A new development occurred at 2:00 P.M. All the forces were instructed not to exit border communities toward the west, in the direction of the border, with an emphasis on not chasing terrorists. At that point, the border area was under intense fire, directed at anyone in that area, making it a danger zone.

"The instruction," says the source in Southern Command, "was meant to turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone, closing it off toward the west."

It will apparently never be known to what extent it did become a killing field, but the army knows of at least one Israeli civilian who was killed in that area as a result of the army's attacks there. He was Dolev Yahoud, whose remains were found last month.

At 6:40, military intelligence believed that many terrorists were intending to flee together back to the Gaza Strip, in an organized manner. This was near Kibbutz Be'eri, Kfar Azza and Kissufim. Following this, the army launched artillery raids at the border fence area, very close to some of these communities. Shortly afterwards, shells were fired at the Erez border crossing. The IDF says it is not aware of any civilians being hurt in these bombardments.

###Unrestricted fire

One case in which it is known that civilians were hit, a case that received wide coverage, took place in the house of Pessi Cohen at Kibbutz Be'eri. 14 hostages were held in the house as the IDF attacked it, with 13 of them killed. In the coming weeks, the IDF is expected to publish the results of its investigation of the incident, which will answer the question of whether Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of Division 99 who was in charge of operations in Be'eri on October 7, was employing the Hannibal procedure. Did he order the tank to move ahead even at the cost of civilian casualties, as he stated in an interview he gave later to the New York Times?

Over all the months that have passed, the IDF has refused to say whether this procedure was employed against civilians who had been taken hostage. It now seems that even if the answer is positive, the question may have been only a partial one. The actions of Hiram may have simply been congruent with the way the IDF operated that day.

As far as Haaretz knows, even at 9:33 P.M. this was still the situation on the ground. At that time, there was a further order from Southern Command: close off all the border area with tanks. In fact, all forces in the area received permission to open fire at anyone approaching the border area, without any restrictions.

The IDF spokesman responded by saying that "the army has been fighting for six months at high intensity on several fronts, focused on attaining the war's objectives. In tandem, the IDF has begun conducting internal investigations of what transpired on October 7 and the preceding period. The aim of these investigations is to learn and to draw lessons which could be used in continuing the battle. When these investigations are concluded, the results will be presented to the public with transparency."