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In the Gaza Strip, thousands of houses were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. Satellite images give an impression.
Since the radical Islamic Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, the Israeli army has been attacking the Gaza Strip from the air every day. It bombards several hundred targets a day with artillery guns and fighter jets. They not only hit Hamas positions, but also countless residential buildings and civilian facilities.
The people of the Gaza Strip cannot escape the war. The area is one of the most densely populated in the world. In addition, Hamas consciously uses civilian infrastructure such as schools or hospitals as operational and logistics bases, as the Israeli side says. It also fires rockets at Israel from settlements. The Israeli counterattacks inevitably devastate the surrounding buildings.
The destruction in the Gaza Strip caused by the air strikes is shown by recently published satellite images from the company Maxar. It also provided recordings from before the start of the war, which enables comparison. The first picture shows the place Beit Hanoun in the northeast of the Gaza Strip, which is only around two kilometers from the border with Israel.
According to the Israeli army, the border town is an important Hamas base. Shortly after the start of the war, air strikes fell on a large part of Beit Hanoun. According to the Gaza Strip Ministry of Health, a hospital was also damaged. Shortly after Israel’s ground offensive began on October 27th, there were gun battles between Israeli soldiers and Hamas supporters in the town.
The satellite images show how multi-story residential buildings and entire rows of houses in Bait Hanoun were razed to the ground. Also in Gaza City near the Shati refugee camp there is after more than three weeks of war massive destruction. The satellite image shows in detail how a complex of 13 residential buildings, each with up to 11 floors, was almost completely destroyed.
It is not possible to estimate exactly how many buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed by the air strikes so far. According to figures from the Ministry of Housing, based on the UN, 6,179 buildings had been destroyed by October 23. Specifically, according to the information, 27,781 residential units – i.e. houses and apartments – are considered destroyed or uninhabitable. The devastation is also evident in Atatra in the northwest of the area:
The devastation in the Gaza Strip is accompanied by great loss of life. According to the area’s Ministry of Health, over 8,000 people have been killed and over 20,000 injured so far. More than two-thirds of the victims died in their homes alongside their families, according to a report by OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Difficult rescue work
Around 1,800 people are still missing. Many of them are believed to be buried under the rubble of the destroyed buildings. But both rescuing survivors and recovering bodies is proving difficult given the ongoing shelling and blockade.
The numbers and satellite images show only a snapshot of the destruction in Gaza. The full extent remains unknown as the air strikes continue. In addition, after the start of the offensive, the Israeli army is now also advancing on the ground with heavy equipment.