Google Maps Satellite Views of Gaza Show Rubble Fields Matching UN Damage Tallies

Streets that once ran past schools, mosques and restaurants now cut through fields of grey rubble, according to satellite imagery on Google Maps that social media users began circulating this week. The map markers for those sites remain in place. What stands beneath them, in many cases, does not.

Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed, who left Gaza with his family in April 2025, told The New Arab he traced the paths of his own neighborhood on the platform and found "heaps of rubble" where he remembered streets and buildings.

"I couldn't even bear continuing looking at that because seeing the place where I grew up, seeing the place where I was born, lined in ruins in that way was absolutely heart shattering," Abed said.

Around Al-Shifa Hospital, once Gaza's largest medical complex, the imagery shows extensive damage at and around the site. Israeli forces withdrew from the hospital on 1 April 2024 after a two-week siege. A World Health Organization mission that reached the hospital days later described it as an "empty shell," with extensive damage to its emergency, surgical and maternity buildings.

Along the coastline, the imagery shows dense rows of makeshift shelters spread across wide stretches of land, a visual record of displacement reshaping the territory.

Social media users, including Ali Abunimah and Zavain Dar, said Google Maps had recently updated its satellite view to reflect the devastation. The New Arab said it has not independently confirmed when the images were captured or added, or which specific areas changed in any recent update. Google had not responded to a request for comment at time of publication.

What the UN has measured

The scenes described in the imagery track with figures UN agencies have published separately. A UN report issued 24 September estimated that roughly 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced, many of them repeatedly, with more than 60 percent of the population having lost their homes. The Palestine Shelter Cluster said earlier this month that about two-thirds of households are living in tents or makeshift shelters.

UN Trade and Development estimated on 24 September that Gaza needs $71.5 billion for recovery and reconstruction, and that 92 percent of the territory's economic establishments have been damaged or destroyed since October 2023. A joint UN, EU and World Bank assessment released in April recorded more than 371,888 housing units damaged or destroyed.

Gaza's Health Ministry says Israel's war has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians since October 2023, a figure that is widely cited but disputed by Israeli officials.

Google's parent company, Alphabet, has separately faced scrutiny over its commercial ties to Israel. In a June 2025 report, UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese named Alphabet and Amazon in connection with Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government, arguing that firms supplying such infrastructure form part of the economy sustaining the occupation and the assault on Gaza.