'Branded’: Satellite images show Star of David carved into Gaza

Newly released satellite images reveal a Star of David clearly etched onto what was once farmland in northern Gaza. This symbol, representing the Jewish faith and the State of Israel, appears in images from the Beit Hanoun area of northern Gaza, a region that has been the site of intense fighting and significant losses for Israeli forces.

Alongside the Star of David, the numbers 7979 also appear, likely referring to the Israeli army's 97th Netzah Yehuda Battalion. This battalion, composed entirely of ultra-Orthodox men, was reportedly deployed to Gaza from the occupied West Bank last January and has been active in the Beit Hanoun area.

Prior to its deployment, the Netzah Yehuda Battalion had been accused of numerous violent crimes, including actions that some U.S. officials believed could constitute serious human rights abuses, such as killing unarmed Palestinians and torturing and sexually abusing detainees. Among the battalion's victims was Omar Abdulmajeed As’ad, an 80-year-old Palestinian-American who died in January 2022 during his arrest by the Netzah Yehuda Battalion.

Palestinian defense analyst Hamza Al-A’tal told Al Jazeera that the Netzah Yehuda Battalion etched the Star of David "to show their presence on Google Maps." Al-A’tal believes this action may be a response to the former U.S. President Joe Biden administration's plans to sanction the battalion. However, after objections from the Israeli government, the U.S. State Department ended its own Leahy Law investigation in August, which prohibits the transfer of weapons to overseas military units involved in serious human rights violations, and which focused on the Netzah Yehuda Battalion.

Researcher and author of The Specter Letter, Elias Ayyoub, stated, “What we’re seeing is an army that is given every resource necessary to destroy Palestinian lives, and how they are completely unaccountable.” He also noted, “As with any genocide, those who commit it often show their superiority by imposing their symbols. The Israeli military is also using religious figures to frame the genocide of Palestinians and the colonization of Gaza as a religious duty.”

Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli Ministry of Defense regarding the Star of David etched in northern Gaza but had not received a response by the time of publication. The Star of David is not the first symbol left by Israeli forces. Images uploaded to social media from Gaza show soldiers erecting large menorahs or painting Jewish symbols on the ruins of buildings. Soldiers have done the same in southern Lebanon since the Israeli invasion in October.

Ayyoub said, “The Israeli army has rabbis on the ground, and soldiers take menorahs and shofars to the battlefield. This is not new, it is just more prevalent now. Israeli religious philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz described these attitudes as ‘Jewish Nazism’ in the 1990s and warned that if it was not stopped it could become the norm. Sadly, he was right.”

Chris Arning, founder and director of Creative Semiotics consultancy, stated, “Branding is about ownership, it’s about marking your territory. Branding originally came from merchants marking their products or farmers marking their livestock to denote ownership. Over time, this has also included the marking of criminals and slaves.”

Arning believes that etching the Star of David into the soil of Beit Hanoun can be seen as a symbolic act of violence, referring to the violence the symbol represents in the local context. Arning continued, “In many ways, it’s about branding this land.”