Hanukkah: Sacred tradition repurposed for 'Israeli' military propaganda

• The candle-lighting inside Tulkarm refugee camp functioned as a symbolic extension of the military operation, not a private religious act.
• The incident reflected a dual 'Israeli' message of control in occupied Palestinian areas and vulnerability for 'Israelis' abroad.
• Palestinian residents and officials viewed the ritual as part of a broader pattern of using religious symbols to assert military dominance over civilian space.

In an image circulated last week, ‘Israeli’ soldiers paused during a pre-dawn raid in the Tulkarm refugee camp to light Hanukkah candles.

The scene took place amid rubble and barbed wire in Nur Shams camp, long sealed off by ‘Israeli’ forces.

Civilians crouched in doorways as soldiers busied themselves at a makeshift menorah on a cracked concrete wall. At the very moment this photograph was being shared, ‘Israel’s’ National Security Council was warning its citizens abroad to avoid unsecured Hanukkah gatherings, citing fears of “copycat” attacks and urging vigilance at synagogues and public celebrations.

- What happened in Tulkarm? -

The candle-lighting took place during an intensive military operation in the Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps. The camps have been under almost constant siege since late last year. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and local authorities say ‘Israeli’ forces have systematically destroyed homes and infrastructure. By late November, ‘Israeli’ bulldozers were deployed to level hundreds of homes in Nur Shams, isolating the camp with concrete gates and cutting off residents.

A Reuters investigation this summer found Nur Shams and nearby Tulkarm camps “all but emptied” by the campaign. Witnesses saw D9 armored bulldozers carving wide new roads through rubble and upended houses. The Palestinian governor of Tulkarm, Abdullah Kamil, described the outcome bluntly: “There is nothing left in the camp, it has become a ghost camp” after more than 100 buildings were demolished. 

‘Israel’ advances a different narrative to justify the operation. In November, the ‘Israeli’ army and the Shin Bet claimed they had uncovered rockets and bomb-making materials during a raid in Tulkarm. ‘Israeli’ media outlets, including Ynet, reported that the operation was part of what ‘Israel’ described as a months-long security investigation and alleged that dozens of Palestinians were arrested.

Palestinian and international human rights organizations reject this framing, arguing that these claims are routinely used to legitimize excessive force. They note that the tactics employed in Tulkarm mirror those used in Gaza, including large-scale bulldozing of residential neighborhoods and the mass displacement of civilians under the banner of what 'Israel' describes as counter-terrorism operations.

Summing up the devastation, one field researcher wrote in June, “Once home to more than 13,000 Palestinians, Nur Shams is now a ghost town after Israel’s most aggressive military campaign against West Bank camps in decades”.

The months-long onslaught on Nur Shams and Tulkarm camps left at least 13 Palestinians dead (including children and a pregnant woman) and displaced over 25,000 people, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

Also, the families have flooded into crowded schools and mosques in Tulkarm city for shelter, with UNRWA field clinics providing only minimal care.

Accounts gathered from residents of Tulkarm refugee camp describe the candle-lighting not as a moment of religious observance, but as an extension of the military operation itself. The following testimonies are composite accounts, based on recurring descriptions provided by multiple residents, with identifying details altered to protect civilians.

Several residents recalled being awakened by explosions and remaining confined inside their homes for days, before soldiers forced families outside and ordered them to sit on the cold ground while houses were searched and, in some cases, demolished. 

One resident described watching bulldozers advance through the camp, fearing his family would be buried beneath the rubble, before seeing soldiers arrange Hanukkah candles on the remains of a neighboring home. Others spoke of hearing Hebrew prayers and holiday songs during the operation, describing the contrast between soldiers’ singing and the fear of displaced families as deeply unsettling. A woman who spent a night hiding with her daughters said the sound of Hanukkah songs nearby made it feel as though “fear and celebration were occupying the same space”, while another resident recalled soldiers photographing the ritual at dawn. 

Younger residents described the experience as particularly disorienting, saying the presence of a religious celebration amid destroyed homes made it feel as though their camp had been transformed into a stage for a display of power. Across these accounts, residents said the ritual conveyed a clear message of control rather than faith, leaving many with a sense that religious symbols were being used to assert dominance. Several described the experience as humiliating and psychologically distressing, saying it stripped religion of any spiritual meaning and reinforced the reality of military authority over civilian life.

- Official Palestinian responses -

The Head of the Refugee Affairs Department in the Palestine Liberation Organization, Dr. Ahmed Abu Holi said that the candle photo represents an egregious breach of occupied civilian space, adding to Palestinians’ sense of collective punishment.

While the Tulkarm governor, Abdullah Kamil, appealed to the UN and human rights bodies to stop these “crimes against nearly 100,000 residents”, explicitly naming family expulsions and home demolitions. He described 'Israeli' raids as “arbitrary and unjust” operations targeting women and children, echoing past condemnations of the Gaza offensive.

- Jewish tradition -

Hanukkah commemorates a second-century BCE revolt led by the Maccabees, but crucially it celebrates the miracle of a single flask of undefiled olive oil burning eight days in the Jerusalem Temple. The rabbis of the Talmud emphasize the oil miracle, an occasion for spiritual humility, not a military conquest.

One tractate even contrasts the modest one-day supply of oil surviving through divine assistance with the brief military success. In synagogue liturgy this is underscored by the reading of Zechariah’s verse: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit” (Zechariah 4:6). 

In other words, Hanukkah’s sacred message has traditionally been one of faith, resilience and non-violence, not armed victory.

Some contemporary Jewish scholars and clergy have complained that 'Israeli' nationalism has co-opted Hanukkah. An American rabbi observed that Zionist ideology “turned the moral of the Hanukkah story on its head to praise militarism”, whereas earlier tradition treated the holiday as one of peace and perseverance.

In 'Israel' today, hard-line media openly spin the candles as symbols of defiance. For example, when soldiers erected a large hanukkiah amid Gaza’s ruins in 2023, a right-wing paper ran the headline “We will drive out the darkness with light”, explicitly casting the scene as a triumphalist message.

Many liberal Jewish voices reject this narrative. One columnist compared 'Israeli' soldiers lighting candles on bombed houses to a Nazi-era image of candles under a swastika: in her view the Gaza image “glorifies death and destruction”, the opposite of the festival’s ethos of spiritual resistance.

These critics point out that the Maccabees themselves, far from being heroes in the ancient rabbinic corpus, were largely ignored whereas rabbis instead elevated the miracle of the oil. In short, among many observant Jews, especially abroad, Hanukkah is supposed to be a quiet festival of lights, not a banner of war.

- Palestinian perspective -

For Palestinians, the use of a Jewish ritual by armed occupiers in a refugee camp is doubly sensitive. First, it involves projecting a foreign religion into a predominantly Muslim-Christian community, effectively appropriating a sacred space. Second, from a theological standpoint, soldiers using religious ceremony as a military prop is deeply unsettling. 

Palestinian Muslims, by law and custom, view places like homes and camps as personal sanctuaries; the intrusive blending of prayer and gunpoint challenges that. While there is no published “fatwa” on the incident, Islamic scholars in Gaza and the West Bank have privately likened it to “istihlal”, the desecration or profanation of something sacred by a conquering force.

In broader terms, ‘Israeli’ soldiers lighting candles can be seen as an assertion of the conqueror’s gods over a conquered people. This is analogous in Palestine’s own history to controversies over Jewish religious displays in East Jerusalem or Hebron acts that are often condemned as theological provocation. 

- Analysis -

Experts in security communications and media studies say this dual messaging is deliberate. Military communications scholars emphasize that modern warfare is as much about narratives as bullets. In strategic terms, a prominent think tank notes, “the war is about perception, telling a story about who is the victim and who is the aggressor”.

From that perspective, the Hanukkah images serve two audiences. To domestic 'Israeli' and international sympathizers, soldiers calmly observing their holiday on the front signals normalcy and moral certainty a morale booster. To Palestinians and other wary observers, it signals dominance: the occupiers claim spiritual as well as territorial conquest. 

Conversely, the simultaneous travel warnings abroad amplify the message of vulnerability on another front. By alerting citizens overseas, officials frame the narrative of an embattled people beset by enemies, justifying heightened security and even further military action back home. The combination assertive ceremony in Tulkarm plus grave caution in Paris or New York effectively links “internal confidence” with “external fear”, this called "information warfare".