SAFA – Newly updated Google Earth satellite imagery has revealed the staggering scale of destruction across Rafah, with vast sections of the southern Gaza city lying in ruins following Israeli military operations.

High-resolution images captured on February 25, 2026, and later added to Google Earth show that large parts of Rafah’s urban landscape have been wiped out, according to an analysis by Al Jazeera.

The images indicate that the Saudi neighborhood in Tal al-Sultan, including a large housing project comprising hundreds of residential units, has been largely flattened. Other areas, including the former Swedish Village, also appear heavily devastated, with only a small number of buildings left standing.

The visual evidence from Google Earth is consistent with United Nations satellite assessments documenting widespread destruction across the Gaza Strip.

The UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) estimated that, as of June 16, 2026, approximately 201,290 structures — roughly 82% of all buildings in Gaza — had sustained some level of damage. Of these, 134,422 were classified as destroyed and another 13,848 as severely damaged.

Earlier UNOSAT analysis identified Rafah as one of the areas hardest hit by Israeli military operations, recording approximately 7,112 newly damaged structures in the governorate between April and July 2025.

The widespread physical destruction has been accompanied by a mounting human toll. Gaza’s Health Ministry reported on September 19 that 73,910 Palestinians had been killed and 174,914 wounded since the war began on October 7, 2023.

The figures include those killed and wounded during Israeli attacks, as well as deaths subsequently confirmed and added to the official toll.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs separately reported that more than 630 bodies and human remains were recovered from beneath destroyed buildings across Gaza between November 2025 and September 2026.

Palestinian Civil Defense officials estimate that more than 8,000 people remain missing beneath the rubble.

Once a refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from other parts of Gaza, Rafah has been transformed by nearly three years of destruction.

The newly updated Google Earth imagery provides a stark, large-scale visual record of that transformation, revealing entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble and documenting the immense physical devastation left by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.