‘Drop and we will bomb you’: Israeli soldiers mark displaced Palestinians with light sticks

After being expelled from Jabalia in Gaza under heavy bombardment and after hours of interrogation, Israeli soldiers handed Samir* a glowing stick.

He was then forced to flee south and given a simple instruction: drop the light and you will be bombed.

It is a new practice by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip to mark forcibly displaced people PalestiniansEyewitnesses told Middle East Eye this.

The light sticks, originally intended for emergency signaling or visibility in the dark, are used to indicate which group of Palestinians have been interrogated, acquitted and are following orders for forced relocation from northern Gaza.

But legal experts warn it makes people without sticks vulnerable to Israeli attacks because they could be seen as potential targets.

Samir, 42, is one of thousands of people driven from northern Gaza in recent weeks since Israeli forces laid siege to the area and launched a new attack there.

Rights groups have raised fears that the offensive is part of a plan to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza of Palestinians and turn it into a “closed military zone.”

Forced to leave Jabalia to rescue his wheelchair-bound, injured friend, Samir fled the area last month with a group of women before encountering Israeli forces along the way.

“They told us, ‘Okay, walk and keep the light with you and don’t throw it away. Drop it and we’ll bomb you’

– Samir, resident of North Gaza

During the men’s interrogation, soldiers told Samir to go south and leave his friend behind, a request he refused to comply with.

His friend was struck shortly afterwards, and when Samir tried to defend him, he was also hit, he said.

One of the soldiers then reminded Samir that he had previously been detained while in al-Awda hospital in December, and was then told to go south.

He warned him that if he were caught a third time in northern Gaza, he would be arrested.

“They threatened me with prison simply for being in the north, even though they acknowledged that I had nothing to do with anything,” Samir told MEE.

After hours of waiting, Samir was released along with his friend and five other men around 11 p.m. and ordered to head south.

“It was dark and the road was very rough because of the debris everywhere,” he recalls.

“I had great difficulty pushing my friend into the wheelchair.”

When the group reached the civil administration area, Israeli soldiers over loudspeakers told them to stop and explain where they came from and why they were late.

“We told them that the army was stopping us,” Samir said.

“They said to us, ‘Okay, walk and keep the light with you and don’t throw it away. Drop it and we’ll bomb you.’

“We kept walking until we arrived at an Unrwa school on Salah al-Din Street, where we had to sleep until morning and then go to Gaza City.”

Glow sticks on the street

Over the past month, Israeli forces have heavily besieged towns in the northern Gaza Strip.

Under cover of heavy air raids, they then began moving from house to house and shelter to shelter, forcing people out at gunpoint.

An estimated 50,000 people have been displaced from the Jabalia refugee camp alone so far.

Those who remained have not received food or water supplies for more than a month and have no access to health care.

Muhammed Kareem Hamdan lived under these conditions and decided to leave Jabalia in the west at the end of October and go to the neighboring town of Beit Lahia.

“The road was filled with grenades, bombardments and gunfire. It was something unbelievable, inhuman,” the 21-year-old told MEE.

‘Even with the light they scared us. Tanks flew right next to us and could have run us over.”

– Muhammed Kareem Hamdan, resident of North Gaza

As soon as they arrived in Beit Lahia, an Israeli quadcopter drone followed them and broadcast recordings ordering them to head south instead.

Hamdan said that after a day passed in which people ignored the message, Israeli forces shelled the area and dropped smoke bombs, killing many people, including children.

As medical and civil protection teams had to suspend their activities due to repeated Israeli attacks, Hadman and his family made the difficult decision to follow the movement orders.

“When we arrived at the Kuwaiti school (in Beit Lahia), the Israeli army asked the women to continue walking while the men entered the school. “There were elderly women in wheelchairs left on the streets who could not move because the military had detained their sons in the schools, leaving them alone and unable to move,” Hamdan recalled.

“They kept us from 8am to midnight. We stayed in the school for hours without the soldiers taking action. They watched us all day as we stood in the sun, without water or food.

“In the afternoon they started putting us in front of cameras (facial recognition), selecting who they wanted. I stood in front of the camera and they took me in for questioning.”

Hamdan then had to wait for hours as he saw dozens of young men stripped down to their boxers and dressed in white clothes before being taken by soldiers to the Sheikh Zayed Towers.

“I could hear them screaming as they were being tortured there,” he said.

After midnight, soldiers ordered Hamdan and three other men, including a disabled man in a wheelchair, to the southern Gaza Strip. Just like Samir, they received a glow stick.

“They gave us the yellow light. It’s a piece of plastic that lights up when it’s broken. It only lasts about 12 hours and then goes out. This lamp does not have an on or off button; they told us to hold it and walk south,” he explained.

“This light is given to each group to signal to other (soldiers) or drones that we have been interrogated and released so that we would not be targeted.

“Yet even with the light they scared us to death. Tanks raced right next to us and could have run us over if we hadn’t been careful.”

Along the route to Gaza City, Hamdan saw several light sticks on the ground.

“There were blue and green light sticks. I don’t know if the soldiers threw them or if they were dropped by the displaced people. I’m not sure if they were worn by people who died. It was dark and we couldn’t see anything.”

Pretext to cause ‘further damage’

Although the Israeli army has told Palestinians that carrying the sticks would protect them from attacks, legal experts say this behavior violates a fundamental principle of international humanitarian law (IHL), namely the distinction between combatants and civilians.

“Under IHL, attacks should only target fighters, and civilians should never be targeted,” Lima Bustami, a Palestinian legal adviser, told MEE.

“The criteria for determining who can lawfully be attacked should be based on an individual’s participation in hostilities, not on arbitrary factors such as whether he or she is holding a light stick.”

Bustami added that this practice undermines the protection afforded to citizens who do not have access to the glow stick, or have lost theirs, or whose sticks do not work properly, exposing them as “direct and unlawful targets.”

It also perpetuates a cycle of fear and vulnerability among citizens, she added.

“It provides Israel with a pretext to harm and injure even more innocent people, while falsely claiming the legitimacy of its actions by claiming that it has taken precautions that in reality are fundamentally inadequate or even misleading.”

At least 1,250 Palestinians have been killed in the attack on northern Gaza so far, according to local officials.

In total, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed nearly 43,400 people and injured another 102,000 since October 7, 2023, most of them children and women, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

*Name changed for security reasons