IDF carried out Hannibal Directive, new 'Sword of Damocles' on October 7 | The Jerusalem PostIDF carried out Hannibal Directive, new 'Sword of Damocles' operation on October 7
The Israeli Air Force was carrying out a new 'Sword of Damocles' operation as it was carrying out the 'Hannibal directive,' the IDF's probes found.
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Israeli security forces on road 232 near the southern Israeli city of Sderot, October 7, 2023(photo credit: OREN BEN HAKOON/FLASH90)
What was the “Sword of Damocles” operation?➤How did Hannibal Directive shape October 7 attacks?➤Why did aircraft movement delay matter so much?➤How many Hamas fighters did the Air Force estimate killed?➤
By
YONAH JEREMY BOBFEBRUARY 27, 2025 18:59Updated: FEBRUARY 27, 2025 19:29
The Air Force was carrying out “the Sword of Damocles” operation – a code name only being revealed on Thursday for the first time - to
attack many Hamas commanders and their headquarters around 10:30 a.m. on October 7, 2023, just as it was carrying out the “Hannibal Directive” of gunning down anything that moved around the Israel-Gaza border.
The Air Force has been questioned about if the forces it had invested in attacking Hamas commanders deep in Gaza would have been better used to defend the Gaza border and to attack Hamas invaders in Israeli villages.
Air Force sources hoped air power had been used 'differently' on October 7
Air Force sources have said that they wish this air power had been used differently on October 7, given that protecting the villages and the border should have been a higher priority than killing top Hamas officials.
Further, Air Force sources indicated that had they known all of the information being debated between IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi and IDF Southern Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Yaron Finkleman, such as the
Israeli SIM cell phone cards which Hamas had activated in Gaza, they might have pushed for the aircraft to be used differently.
In contrast, IDF southern command sources have indicated that they believe that the attack on the Hamas commanders and headquarters significantly reduced the number of invaders who would have streamed into Israel absent those attacks.
Some sources said that there were concerns that tens of thousands or even more Gazans might have invaded Israel, far more than the around 5,400 which actually attacked, and that activating the Sword of Damocles plan was the right move even looking backwards.
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Besides that, essentially the Air Force took significant responsibility for being a part of the failure on October 7, but also said that it was simply not in the game.
The general Air Force plan for that weekend was to have only one drone watching over Gaza, as there was an assumption that there would be various warnings and time to prepare if there would be any major change in the stabilized situation.
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While Halevi ordered that the Air Force have additional aircraft nearby a few hours before the invasion, and two more drones were directed toward Gaza, lower down Air Force officers decided along with lower down Operations Command officers to only move a fighter jet from Ramat David base in the North to Ramon base, much closer to Gaza, on a delay of a few hours from when the order was given.
It turned out that the invasion started 90 minutes before the aircraft was due to be finally moved as opposed to if it had been moved when Halevi ordered, two hours before the invasion.
The lower down officers did not deem the order to be an emergency, as long as they complied within a reasonable amount of time.
The Air Force said that it accomplished this in an impressive period of only several hours, much faster than the pre-war estimated time.
Given that most of Hamas’s forces had returned to Gaza with most of the hostages it took by around 12:00, most of the Air Force simply could not be ready in time.
The Air Force said that it has approximately doubled – from around a dozen - the number of aircraft to be available on short notice for helping with a potential border invasion and that it will also integrate old-fashioned guns onto some aircraft which can be used for flying low and strafing a border area with machine gun fire.
On October 7, much of the Air Force was carrying
heavier bombs which could be used to destroy much more powerful damage to an enemy, but which were too large to use in complex situations with Hamas invaders and Israeli civilians in close proximity to each other.
Israeli pilots were afraid of striking hostages in Hannibal Directive
Further, the Air Force said that many pilots were reluctant about hitting potential hostages even after the
Hannibal Directive was issued.
In addition, the Air Force probe said that generally pilots receive highly specific information of where and what to attack and that: Most Air Force officers were not in the South due to vacations, those that were had a similar lack of full understanding of the constantly evolving situation, and the IDF Southern Command was similarly “blind” to how multi-pronged the invasion was.
The Air Force would carry out around 945 attacks with helicopters firing 11,000 times.
Out of 1,600 killed Hamas fighters, the Air Force estimates that it killed around 1,000.
157 Israelis were rescued by Air Force special forces Unit 669 and in at least two cases – at the IDF Nahal Oz position and near the “Black Arrow” and Miflasim village area – Air Force interventions scared away or killed Hamas invaders who were about to kill more Israelis.
According to the Air Force, some of its top aircraft which got into the air fairly quickly, were assigned to stay in the air near critical infrastructure areas, or were kept near the northern border lest Hezbollah stage a second invasion, and not to help with the defense of the southern border.
Bar was told by Halevi very early in the morning that he should be sending aircraft northward in case Hezbollah intervened.
Air Force sources said that had Hezbollah invaded, which almost happened, and the Air Force had not been ready in the North, it would have faced even harsher questions than it did about not being ready in the South.
Besides the fact that lots of the Air Force’s serious power was sent northward or to guard critical infrastructure sites, the Air Force probe also showed that its plans for reinforcing border areas downplayed Gaza and had its aircraft stationed too far away.
In one case where the Air Force tried to take the initiative based on pre-war intelligence and to attack without concrete real-time updated intelligence, it attacked a tunnel which officers thought Hamas might use to send fighters into Nativ Haasara. It turned out later that no Hamas fighters had been there.
Next, Hamas’s 3,889 rocket attacks in a short period of time exhausted the Iron Dome supplies in the South, leading to only less protection, which in turn meant that many southern runways were hit and required repairs.
