Zooming in on newly launched satellite tv for pc photographs of what was once farmland in northern Gaza, the define of what clearly seems to be a Star of David is carved into the bottom.
The image of each the Jewish religion and the state of Israel could be seen in photographs of Beit Hanoon, an space of northern Gaza that has seen in depth preventing and losses for the Israeli army.
Subsequent to the star seems the numbers 7979, a doable reference to the Israeli army’s 97th Netzah Yehuda Battalion.
Observe report of violations
The Netzah Yehuda Battalion, an all-male ultra-Orthodox unit, was reported to have deployed from the occupied West Financial institution to Gaza in January final yr and has operated in Beit Hanoon.
Earlier than its deployment, the battalion had been accused of quite a few violent crimes, together with what some United States officers stated may quantity to gross violations of human rights, together with the killing of unarmed Palestinians and the torture and sexual abuse of prisoners in its custody.
Among the many battalion’s alleged victims was a Palestinian American man in his 80s, Omar Abdulmajeed Asaad, who died throughout his arrest by the Netzah Yehuda Battalion in January 2022.
After stress from the US authorities, Israel agreed to pay compensation to Asaad’s family later that yr. Nonetheless, as a part of the payout, the Israeli authorities insisted that nobody in Netzah Yehuda be held accountable for Asaad’s dying.
Dangerous intent
The Netzah Yehuda Battalion made the Star of David “for Google Maps, to be seen that they had been right here”, Hamze Attar, a Palestinian defence analyst, informed Al Jazeera.
Attar stated the act may have been a response to plans by the administration of former US President Joe Biden to sanction the battalion. In August, nevertheless, the US Division of State ended its investigation into breaches of its personal Leahy Legal guidelines, which prohibit the transfer of weapons to overseas military units concerned in gross human rights violations, following objections by the Israeli authorities. The investigation had been targeted on Netzah Yehuda.
“We’re seeing what absolute impunity seems to be like in a military that’s given every part it must destroy Palestinian life,” stated Elia Ayoub, researcher and writer of the Hauntologies newsletter. “As in any genocide, these committing them typically benefit from displaying their superiority by forcing their symbols on their victims. The Israeli military additionally utilises non secular figures who communicate of this genocide of Palestinians and the colonisation of Gaza as a non secular responsibility.”
Al Jazeera has contacted the Israeli Ministry of Defence relating to the Star of David etched into northern Gaza however didn’t obtain a response by the point of publication.
An intensive sample
The Star of David is just not the primary image left by Israeli forces. In Gaza, photographs uploaded to social media have proven troopers placing up large menorah candles or drawing Jewish symbols within the wreckage of buildings. Troopers have completed the identical in southern Lebanon since Israel invaded in October.
“The [Israeli military] has rabbis on the bottom, and troopers have introduced the menorah and shofar to the battlefield,” Ayoub stated. “This isn’t new. It’s simply way more widespread now. The Israeli non secular thinker Yeshayahu Leibowitz described these attitudes as that of Judeo-Nazis within the Nineteen Nineties, warning that it may turn out to be the norm if not stopped. Sadly he was proper.”
A ceasefire on January 19 introduced an finish, a minimum of briefly, to Israel’s assaults on Gaza carried out because the Hamas-led assaults in southern Israel of October 7, 2023. These killed 1,139 individuals and took about 250 individuals captive. Israel’s subsequent conflict on Gaza has killed a minimum of 47,306 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded one other 111,483 whereas displacing about 1.9 million of its 2.3 million individuals.
In accordance with research by Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State College and Corey Scher of the Metropolis College of New York, 60 % of all buildings in Gaza have been destroyed by Israeli forces because the conflict started. In Beit Hanoon, the determine is 70 %.
The difficulty of Gaza’s future past the conflict acquired added relevance final week after US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the Palestinian inhabitants of the enclave be “cleaned out”.
The pressured displacement of Gaza’s whole inhabitants has been a cornerstone of the Israeli far proper for many years.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has typically spoken of his want to re-establish Israeli settlements inside Gaza, welcomed Trump’s suggestion, pledging: “I’ll, with God’s assist, work with the prime minister and the cupboard to make sure there may be an operational plan to implement this as quickly as doable.”
‘Possession’
“Branding is about possession. It’s about marking your territory,” stated Chris Arning, the founder and director of Creative Semiotics, a consultancy specialising within the which means of brand name symbols. “Branding initially got here from tradespeople marking their merchandise or farmers branding their cattle to indicate possession. Over time, that additionally included the branding of convicts and slaves.”
The carving of the Star of David into the soil of Beit Hanoon could be seen as an act of symbolic violence, Arning stated, referring to the violence that image represents within the native context.
“In some ways,” Arning continued, “it’s branding the land.”
