Google Maps reveals total devastation in the Gaza Strip after years of conflict
New satellite images released by Google Maps, captured in early 2026, offer a bleak view of the current landscape in Gaza. After three years of restrictions preventing international press access to the territory, the graphic material confirms the scale of the destruction in multiple cities and neighborhoods, now turned into rubble due to the prolonged military offensive.
Rafah and Khan Yunis under the rubble
One of the critical points is Rafah, in the south of the enclave, which before the ground incursion of May 2024 served as a refuge for some 300,000 Palestinians. Despite international warnings that described this operation as a “red line,” the area has been severely affected, with sectors such as Tel al-Sultan and the Saudi neighborhood practically unrecognizable. A similar situation is presented by the towns of Khuza’a and Abasan al-Kabira, in Khan Yunis, where housing infrastructure has been wiped off the map.
Looking at these images, it gives the impression that someone took each of these houses, put them in a mortar, and crushed and ground them up.
Mosab Abu Toha, Gazan poetImpact on civil and health infrastructure
The trail of devastation is total and even reaches sports facilities and medical centers. The Palestine Stadium, which served as a venue for local teams, is today an improvised tent camp. For its part, Al-Shifa Hospital, the most important medical complex in the region, shows the traces of the sieges suffered in 2023 and 2024, including the presence of improvised mass graves in its courtyards due to the impossibility of accessing cemeteries.
- 83% of Gaza City’s infrastructure is severely damaged.
- More than 17,734 structures have been completely destroyed.
- The towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, in the north, report critical structural damage and the total loss of agricultural areas.
A historic setback for Gaza
The humanitarian crisis resulting from this scenario is unprecedented. According to United Nations reports, 1.9 million Gazans are forcibly displaced, while more than 371,888 homes have been destroyed or irreparably damaged. Furthermore, the functionality of the healthcare system has collapsed, with more than half of the hospitals out of service.
Experts point out that the level of destruction has set the Gaza Strip back approximately 77 years in terms of social and urban development, leaving an entire population mired in a crisis that much of the international community has described as a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions.
