There comes a point when a place can no longer be recognised from the sky. New satellite imagery published on Google Maps, and set before-and-after by Al Jazeera, shows the Gaza Strip nearly three years into Israel’s genocidal war: neighbourhood after neighbourhood pressed into rubble, the faint lines of the main roads drawn like a skeleton over what were cities, farmland charred, centuries-old places of worship damaged or gone entirely. More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, 2023.
The arithmetic of ruin
The United Nations Satellite Centre, UNOSAT, keeps the ledger. Its recent assessment found the number of destroyed structures has risen 9 per cent since a “ceasefire” took effect nearly a year ago. In all, according to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, about 82 per cent of Gaza’s structures — roughly 200,000 buildings — have been damaged, and about two-thirds of those destroyed. The bombers, one might reflect, pause; the counting continues.
Rafah: the refuge that was emptied
In the south, Rafah became the terminus of Gaza’s displacement, absorbing people from across the Strip until Israeli operations began there in May 2024 and about one million fled again toward Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah, as UNRWA shelters emptied. The once densely packed Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood in western Rafah has been almost entirely wiped out; the satellite sees little more than sand where homes stood.
A short way up the coast lies al-Mawasi, once a sparse strip of sand and farmland. Israel declared it a “humanitarian zone” early in the war and told the displaced to seek safety there. In May 2024, as the Rafah operation loomed, then-US President Joe Biden warned: “If they go into Rafah, … I’m not supplying the weapons.” The operation went ahead; hundreds of thousands more were pushed into al-Mawasi, which has since been bombed repeatedly. The newest images show the empty strip now covered in tents, packed with families who have nowhere else to go.
Khan Younis and Gaza City
Khan Younis governorate recorded the highest count of damaged structures in UNOSAT’s October 2025 assessment: 51,885. It was one of Gaza’s agricultural hearts, and it has lost the largest total area of cropland of any governorate. In the Ma’an area, the Indonesian Istiqlal Mosque, reopened less than two years before, was destroyed. To the north, Gaza governorate followed close behind with 51,530 damaged structures, 41,663 in Gaza City alone. Among the worst-hit sites is the city’s port, heart of a fishing industry that once supported about 110,000 people; the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says the port is severely damaged and most of the boats destroyed. A people fed by the sea now watches the sea from tents.
Jabalia, and the numbers beneath the rubble
The North Gaza governorate suffered the highest proportion of damaged cropland in the Strip — 94 per cent by July 2025, according to the UN’s humanitarian affairs office. Beit Lahiya, Jabalia and neighbouring communities endured repeated military operations, forced displacement and severe restrictions on aid. Jabalia refugee camp, the largest of Gaza’s eight, lies destroyed, whole blocks reduced to rubble in the satellite frames — images captured in 2024 and 2025 for the north, and this year for Rafah.
The official toll stands at more than 74,000 killed and more than 175,000 injured, and it is certainly incomplete: many bodies remain beneath the rubble. Even the year of the “ceasefire” has not stilled the counting — more than 1,400 people have been killed and almost 5,000 injured since it began. The satellites can see the erased streets with perfect clarity. What no lens can resolve is buried there.