Updated Google Earth imagery shows scale of destruction in Rafah

• Recent UN data says 134,422 structures across Gaza had been destroyed by June 2026
• Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 73,900 Palestinians have been killed and 174,900 injured since October 2023

Updated satellite imagery available through Google Earth is showing the scale of destruction across Rafah, where entire neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble following ‘Israel’s’ military aggression on the Gaza Strip.

High-resolution imagery captured on Feb. 25, 2026, and subsequently added to Google Earth shows large areas of southern Gaza with much of the urban landscape erased, according to an analysis published by Al Jazeera.

In Rafah, the imagery shows the Saudi neighbourhood in Tal al-Sultan, including a housing project with hundreds of units, largely flattened. Other areas, including the former Swedish village, have also sustained extensive destruction, with only a small number of structures remaining, according to the analysis.

The updated imagery comes as UN satellite assessments document extensive damage across the Gaza Strip. The UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) estimated that, as of June 16, 2026, about 201,290 structures, or 82% of all structures in Gaza, had sustained damage. Of those, 134,422 were classified as destroyed, while a further 13,848 were severely damaged.

An earlier UNOSAT assessment found that Rafah was among the areas experiencing the sharpest increases in damage, with around 7,112 newly damaged structures recorded in the governorate between April and July 2025.

The human toll has also continued to rise. Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sept. 19 that 73,910 Palestinians had been killed and 174,914 wounded since the start of the war on Oct. 7, 2023. The figures include people killed and wounded during the conflict and those whose deaths were subsequently verified and added to the official count.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has separately reported that more than 630 bodies and human remains were recovered from beneath destroyed buildings across Gaza between November 2025 and September 2026, while the Palestinian Civil Defence estimates that more than 8,000 people remain missing under the rubble.

The satellite imagery offers a broad visual record of the physical changes to Rafah, once home to hundreds of thousands of people and a major refuge for Palestinians displaced from other parts of Gaza.

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