Thomas Wictor

Studying Operation Protective Edge has confirmed my greatest fear about my fellow humans: To make people believe something, all you need to do is tell them about it. They require no evidence. One of the many lies spread about Israel is that on August 1, 2014, the IDF massacred up to 190 Palestinian civilians in Rafah after the Givati Brigade was attacked during a ceasefire. The IDF used what’s called the Hannibal Directive or Hannibal Protocol to try and cut off escape routes for Hamas terrorists who were thought to have captured Lieutenant Hadar Goldin.

If you read virtually any media account of what the IDF calls “Black Friday,” you’d think that the Israelis had leveled Rafah.

Did Israel’s ‘Hannibal directive’ lead to a war crime in Gaza?

The July-August war in Gaza drew international condemnation for a number of reasons, but one episode proved more deadly than any other: an Israeli air and artillery bombardment on Aug. 1 that killed 150 people in a matter of hours.

Six weeks on from the war, with the toll of destruction still being counted, there is deepening unease about what took place that day, especially over whether too much force was used. Some legal experts say a war crime may have been committed.

The events unfolded just as a three-day ceasefire was supposed to come into force. Hamas militants emerged from a tunnel inside Gaza and ambushed three Israeli soldiers, killing two of them and seizing the third.

To rescue the soldier - dead or alive - and ensure Hamas could not use him as a hostage, the Israeli army invoked what is known as the “Hannibal directive”, an order compelling units to do everything they can to recover an abducted comrade.

What ensued was a furious assault on a confined area on the eastern edge of Rafah, the largest city in southern Gaza, home to around 200,000 people. Israeli artillery and tanks bombarded four neighborhoods for several hours - at times firing a shell a minute - while fighter jets carried out air strikes.

As well as the 150 people killed, medics in Gaza said around 200 were wounded, the majority civilians. It was the deadliest day of the seven-week conflict, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians, again most of them civilians, were killed, as well as 67 Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel.

You can’t find better proof that the global press is nothing but stenographers for terrorists. The casualty figures are flat-out lies. All you have to do is look at the lists that the Palestinians provided.

The total number of Palestinian civilians killed, according to the Ministry of Health (MOH).

The children killed, according to the al-Mezan Center for Human Rights (AMCHR).

An alternate list of civilians killed, provided by the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC).

By comparing the three lists, here’s what I get.

Musa Hamad Abu Oumran, Unknown, Male
Ibrahim Sulaiman Almasri, 50, Male
Nadia Yousef Almasri, 45, Female
Ibrahim Almasri, 6, Male
Mohamed Anas Aarafat, 4 months, Male
Anas Ibrahim Hamad, 5, Male
Sabri Sheikh Aleid, 35, Male
Mohamed Khalid Alaaloul, 30, Male
Ibrahim Mustafa Ghanim, Male
Amna Alzamely, Female
Yehya Abdelkareem Lafy, Male
Salama Mohamed Alzamely, Male
Noha Jamal Abuziad, Female
Teyseer Ali Momar, Male
Hussein Salem Aljaafary, Male
Yousra Mohamed Abujazar, Female
Aatef Hamad Almahmoum, Male
Musa Ibrahim Abu Jazar, Male
Hilal Eid Abu Oumran, Unknown, Male
Mohamed Anas Aarafat, 4 months, Male
Anas Ibrahim Hamad, 5, Male
Rawan Nashaat Siyam, 12, Female
Oudai Rafaat Zouroub, 12, Male
Saad Nouman Zouroub, 34, Male
Shahad Rafaat Zouroub, 10, Female
Khalid Rafaat Zouroub, 8, Male
Amir Rafat Zouroub, 18, Male
Subhia Zouroub, 55, Female
Ibrahim Anwar Alshaaer, Male
Ibtisam Hamad Almahmoum, 18, Female
Heba Mustafa Almahmoum, 7, Female
Eibada Mustafa Almahmoum, 3

Thirty-two names, of which twenty-two—69 percent—are male. If the IDF was firing indiscriminately, how did it manage to hit mostly males? The IDF’s own investigation showed that forty-one were killed, twelve of whom were terrorists, thirteen civilians, and the rest “undetermined but of fighting age.”

Here are the “children” listed by the AMCHR as having been killed.

*Nagham Shareef Al Namla, 10, female
*Jehad Suleiman Abu Omran, 12, male
*Khalil Ibrahim Sheikh El Eed, 4, male
*Aya Ibrahim Sheikh El Eed, 5, female
*Abdel Kareem Ibrahim Sheikh El Eid, 2, male
*Hala Bassm Madi, 3, male
*Jana Bassm Madi, 2, female
*Yousef Ahmed Madi, 3, male
Ibrahim Anwar Al Sha’er, 16, male
*Emad Ahmed Ahmed, 17, male
*Yehia Salim Al Tarabin - Al Mahmoum, 13, male
*Do’aa Mustafa Al Mahmoum, 4, female
*Bisan Mustafa Al Mahmoum, 12, female
Heba Mustafa Al Mahmoum, 9, female
Obada Mustafa Al Mahmoum, 2, male
*Asmaa’ Salim Al Tarabin - Al Mahmoum, 16, female
Ibrahim Suleiman Al Masri, 5, male
*Khalid Suleiman Al Masri, 4, male
*Mohammed Ahmed Abu Sha’ar, 17, male
Anas Ibrahim Hammad, 4, male
Mohammed Anas Arafat, 5 months, male
Ameer Ra’fat Zorob, 15, male
Odai Ra’fat Zorob, 13, male
Shahd Ra’fat Zorob, 10, female
Khalid Ra’fat Zorob, 8, male
*Ahmed Mustafa Zorob, 15, male
*Mohammed Musrafa Zorob, 12, male
*Waleed Mustafa Zorob, 6, male
*Mu’tasim Musrafa Zorob, 2, male
Rawan Nash’at Siyam, 8, female
*Rami Nash’at Siyam, 15, female

Thirty names. However, the ones with asterisks next to them aren’t found on any other lists. Twenty of the names weren’t reported by the MOH. And Ameer Ra’fat Zorob was in fact eighteen, not fifteen.

The Zorob family of Rafah—also spelled “Zouroub” and “Zo’rob”—are well-known terrorists. Here’s a cute little lie that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) told about July 12, 2014.

In reality, Haitham Ashraf Zorob was not a civilian. He was a terrorist of the Hamas Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Nothing that the Palestinians report can be taken at face value. What’s funny is that they’re losing the ability to lie convincingly. This is what the PCHR wrote about he nonexistent “Hannibal Directive massacre” of August 1, 2014, in Rafah.

Since Friday morning, 01 August 2014, Israeli forces committed unprecedented crimes in Rafah, claiming that an Israeli soldier was kidnapped in the southeast of Rafah, during the humanitarian truce that were declared at midnight. Israeli forces launched 100 airstrikes and fired hundreds of tank shells indiscriminately at Palestinian civilian. Israeli warplanes also bombarded houses without prior warning, which constitutes an act of reprisal against the civilian population. As a result of these attacks, 123 Palestinian civilians, including 33 children and 14 women, were killed, 29 of whom are still unidentified.

Where to begin?

Even if 123 Palestinian civilians had been killed, that’s hardly unprecedented. It’s actually a miracle, considering that “100 airstrikes” were carried out and tanks fired hundreds of shells “indiscriminately.” And if we use the fake number of deaths and names, it means that 83 were men and military-aged males. That’s 67 percent. Again, how did the Israelis manage to kill mostly men if they were shooting in all directions with their eyes closed?

According to the IDF, 800 artillery shells and 260 mortar rounds were fired, while fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft struck 35 targets. The end result was forty-one dead, of which I believe the majority were terrorists.

This was an anti-massacre. Just one M107 155mm artillery round could’ve killed forty-one people. Or one 2000-lb bomb. Or one 120mm mortar round fired into a building.

It’s time that we start calling them “Palestinian human-wrongs organizations.”