How Israel’s army uses glow sticks to sow terror in Gaza

With a trembling hand and his heart racing, Ibrahim Alloush, a Palestinian man from Jabalia, was forced to hold a glow stick by an Israeli investigator to flee to Gaza City after hours of being roughly interrogated and beaten.

The 22-year-old man and his family were forced to leave Jabalia camp after surviving more than 40 days of an Israeli siege and Israeli bombardment of the northern areas of the Gaza Strip.

“We tried to stay in our home despite all the bombing, destruction, fear and terror. We did not want to be displaced and leave our property. We were innocent civilians and hoped to spend the rest of our lives in our house,” he said to The New Arab. 

Alloush and his ten-member family tried to endure the subsequent Israeli assaults against them, including starvation and lack of water and medicine. However, the Israeli army stormed the neighbourhood and demanded all the civilians to leave immediately otherwise they would kill all of them, which prompted Alloush and his family to surrender.

After taking off their clothes, the army ordered the Palestinian men to move towards a school while raising their hands over their heads. 

“They separated us from our wives, sisters, mothers and children who were forced to head south alone. Then, the army arrested us for investigation in the school schools that was turned into an investigation centre,” Alloush said. 

‘Do not drop it’

“We stayed for long hours without knowing our fate […] After that, the army summoned me for investigation and the soldiers beat and insulted me. I swore to them that I was a civilian, but they did not believe me and accused me of helping the resistance. They told me they will kill me like they did of hundreds of men,” he said. 

Ultimately, Alloush was released, but the Israeli soldiers had one more condition for him. They gave his a glow stick. 

“Do not drop it, or we will attack you,” the soldier threatened Alloush. Alloush, with tens of other men, quickly left the school towards Gaza City to join their families, holding the glow sticks in their hands. 

“The glow stick was the only means of survival from the occupation’s bombing and killing of us,” Mohammed, a Palestinian man based in Beit Lahia who was part of the group, remarked to TNA. 

“All of us were scared and felt cold as we were almost naked and did not know which way to go,” he said. 

The men raced against time to a safe area before the glow stick turned off. “We feared being attacked by the Israeli army. Many tragic imaginations came to my mind about how the Israeli army would kill us,” Mohammed said. 

“I saw dozens of bodies on the road, some of them holding sticks. When I thought that I would inevitably die, I prayed to God that even if I was killed, someone would find me and bury me instead of my body being eaten by stray dogs,” he added. 

Fortunately, the men reached Gaza City after hours of walking barefoot. 

“As soon as we arrived, we all screamed and cried a lot. We tried to call our families, but we did not have any mobile phone to contact them, so we slept in the street until the next morning,” Mohammed described. 

12-hour ‘life-line’

According to Aloush and Mohammed, the glow stick is a piece of plastic that lights up for only 12 hours after it is broken and then goes out on its own.

Mohammed al-Arabid, another displaced person from Beit Hanoun, was also ordered by the army, along with dozens of others, after being interrogated to head to Gaza City with these glow sticks.

“The soldiers told us that these sticks are our lifeline for as long as they are lit, and that way we can distinguish between fighters and civilians,” al-Arabid told TNA. 

“Even if we carried the glow sticks, the Israeli soldiers still fired at us. They shot near our feet and were just laughing at us,” al-Arabid said. 

Palestinian and international organisations accuse Israel of using excessive force in the war on Gaza and failing to distinguish between civilians and combatants as part of a genocidal policy. 

“Israel’s choice of methods and means of conducting hostilities in Gaza since 7 October 2024, including the extensive use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated areas, failed to ensure effective distinction between civilians and combatants,” the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for human rights said in a recent press statement. 

“The rule of choosing methods and means of warfare that avoid or at least minimize civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in the Israeli bombing campaign,” Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said recently. 

Since 5 October 2024, the Israeli army has been conducting a ground military operation in northern Gaza, specifically on Jabalia camp. The Israeli army claims that the operation seeks to prevent Hamas from reorganising its ranks, while the Palestinians accused Israel of seeking to forcibly displace the residents of these areas.

The Israeli army is imposing a siege on the Jabalia camp and the neighbouring cities of Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, preventing the entry of water and food, and most medical, ambulance, emergency and civil defence services have been halted.

According to figures from the Gaza government media office, Israel‘s military campaign in the northern Gaza Strip has killed more than 2,000 people. More than 40,000 people, mainly women and children, have been killed by Israel since 7 October 2023.