Viral Google Maps Images Shared Widely This Week Show Gaza Ruins. We Obtained More Recent Satellite Imagery - bellingcat
This article has interactive before and after images that you can look at.
Earlier this week, several viral social media posts and news articles stated that Google had updated satellite imagery over Gaza.
The imagery shared in these posts and articles shows several areas, including the southern city of Rafah. Huge destruction is detailed in the images, including what appears to be entire neighbourhoods flattened
But the imagery wasn’t entirely new.
A Google spokesperson told Bellingcat that they regularly updated third-party satellite images and that the latest Gaza imagery had actually been available since June 2026.
Bellingcat has access to satellite imagery from commercial space company Planet Labs, which shows further destruction in Rafah after the June Google update.
The Planet Labs imagery also gives insight into destruction further north in Gaza as recently as September.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/middle-east/2026/10/01/viral-google-maps-images-shared-widely-this-week-show-gaza-ruins-we-obtained-more-recent-satellite-imagery/Open linkView original on piefed.ca
16 replies
Honestly these images don't even do it justice. There are some real armageddon-type images and videos online. Entire cities look like the surface of the moon.
Like this. This used to be the town of Beit Hanoun. Now looks like Mars.
Or this
Or this
Someone should make this into a VR experience. Maybe then people will actually grasp the reality for the people on the ground.
Sure for the .000001% of people with a VR headset who would care enough to download and try it.
it could be done without VR, like first person games do
Could make it an installation at a museum or gallery. Who said anything about needing to personally own the hardware?
These still put some distance to the reality. The ones filmed from the ground are even more compelling, that's why we don't see them often, they are scrubbed from YouTube immediately. In all those videos, the common factor is that you don't see people and that's by choice
Done to "demilitarize" Gaza.
Hey, it only takes 14 Gazan toddlers to hold up a bazooka. You don't wanna be antisemitic by not dropping white phosphorous on them, do you?!
/s
Hundreds of thousands of hours of labor. Tens of thousands of lives. All because supremacy.
If one person could build one house in one hour, your number would still be underestimated
When I see these ruins I think about the children that were buried inder these buildings, many alive, alone, afraid, waiting for help that would not arrive because helpers would be sniped or double tapped. Just imagine their agony😢
Not to downplay the amount of destruction, but this is after the US and Israel both bombed the Gaza strip in 2014 and didn't allow enough material back inside to rebuild.
So this is how Gaza is going to look for decades because of the US backed Israeli blockade that literally counts how many calories go into Gaza.
The genocide has been constant for decades.
It's literally photos from 2024 and then 2026.
?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War
Israel used US bombs, no doubt, but the US bombed gaza in 2014?
Hi! You're right, I misunderstood some of the context that was being discussed in a Q&A from a panel session with Dr Feroze Sidhwa (one of the doctors from the documentary American Doctor).
They described the 2008-2009 assault (not 2014) as US and Israeli led. The context from that part is that the US provided a ton of logistical, material, and political support (blaming Hamas when Israel broke the ceasefire, passing unanimous motions in the House for arms shipments, opposing calls for an immediate ceasefire).
yeah I'll never doubt the US supplied the weapons and aircraft and gas and bullets and oil to lubricate all of the above to israel - basically everything except for pulling the trigger.... fml