October 7 mystery: Warnings, IDF response, Hannibal Directive, Nova festival

Almost three years after the October 7 Al Aqsa flood by Hamas, which killed exactly 1,195 innocent people, including 736 Israeli civilians, 38 children, 380 Israeli security forces and 79 foreign nationals, several questions regarding the details of the attack remain unanswered. Even if we overlook the European settler colonialism, the historical injustice of Nakba, converting Gaza into an open-air prison and the disproportionality of the response following October 7, which was likened to genocide by the UN, there are certain specific questions concerning the Al Aqsa Flood and the Supernova festival that are still baffling. Some of these questions have been blissfully ignored by the Western media but were highlighted courtesy of Israeli media.

Did Israel know about October 7?

Israel had warning signs about a possible Hamas attack. Extensive investigative reports by Israeli newspaper Haaretz claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was personally warned about a potential Hamas attack, and even his security agencies were also notified repeatedly. In fact, reports suggest that the UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed called Netanyahu roughly a week and a half before the attacks for a 45-minute conversation and warned him that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning a major offensive. Former Palestinian Authority official Sufian Abu Zaida stated that on September 14, 2023, Sinwar directly warned about a major offensive by the end of September. According to a NYT report, Israeli Military intelligence had a "Jericho Wall" blueprint for Hamas's multi-point border invasion almost a year ahead of the incident.

IDF response time

Israel is a small country, similar to states like Nagaland and Manipur in northeastern India. Major regional military reserve and reinforcement hubs such as the Tze'elim training base were positioned roughly 20 to 40 kms from the Gaza border, but it took the IDF roughly 3- 6 hours to respond to the crisis. Reports from Israeli media Hareetz suggest the initial assault started between 06:30– 07:30 am; initial responders were police and individual military personnel; an organised response was started at around 12:00 pm and later. The IDF's own probe found its leadership initially denied they'd been beaten. Police also told the army the area was cleared. There has been no independent enquiry into this.

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Hannibal Directive

This is the most contested question that has been mostly overlooked: the long-time secretive directive, later reportedly revoked in 2016 by Gadi Eisenkot. The Hannibal directive allows Israeli soldiers to use potentially massive amounts of force to prevent a soldier from falling into the hands of the enemy. Haaretz reported that the directive was invoked on October 7, while Israeli army commanders struggled to fully grasp the scale of the assault by Hamas. According to documents accessed by Haaretz, it was first invoked at Erez, a crossing between Israel and Gaza; the order given by the divisional headquarters was simply “Hannibal at Erez”; similar directives were issued five hours later at Gaza Division: “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza.” A United Nations-backed report said more than a dozen Israeli civilians and soldiers lost their lives to Israeli fire. The IDF has declined to say whether it was used. Yoav Gallant, former Defence Minister, acknowledged in an interview with Israel's Channel 12 that the Hannibal Directive was applied during the October 7, 2023 attacks.

Supernova music festival

The Supernova music festival switched from the original planned location in southern Israel to near Kibbutz Re'im, roughly 4-5 kms from the Gaza border, just two days before the event began. The event was scheduled to conclude on October 6, but the Israeli military allowed it to continue till October 7. Israeli police and the Israeli military concluded that Hamas had no prior information about the festival. Because of the extension, thousands of festival-goers were still dancing at sunrise on October 7 when the initial rocket barrages and paraglider assaults began at around 6:30 am.

Approving the Nova music festival to occur so close to a volatile border, negligence in the approval process, not cancelling the party despite dangerous invasion signs on October 6, and failing to send anywhere near sufficient forces to save the partygoers drew internal scrutiny from the media.