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Actor Angelina Jolie, a former longtime UN special envoy, shared before-and-after satellite images of the Gaza Strip on Instagram on Saturday, saying the destruction can now be seen on Google Earth.
"You can now open Google Earth and see what was done to Gaza," Jolie wrote. The images compare areas of Gaza before the war with their appearance this summer.
The images show areas near the Al-Qadisiyah School in Rafah, a city on the enclave's southern border with Egypt [ADDED, not in source: geographic anchoring]; Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza; and Omar Mukhtar Street in Gaza City, the largest urban centre in the north [ADDED, not in source: geographic anchoring]. Large sections of previously dense urban areas appear in ruins.
"Whole neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble," Jolie said. She added that homes, schools, universities, hospitals, roads, water and sanitation systems and other infrastructure had been damaged or destroyed.
Citing a UN satellite analysis, Jolie said 82% of structures in Gaza had been damaged as of June. Roughly two-thirds of the damaged structures were assessed as destroyed.
Jolie also cited figures showing that 1.98 million people, or 94% of Gaza's population, need shelter assistance and essential items as winter approaches. "Aid and shelter materials continue to face restrictions and delays," she said.
She said satellite imagery shows the physical scale of the destruction but not its human impact. "What it cannot show is what it means to live among it, what happened to the families who were killed, and what life is like for those who survived," she said.
Jolie called for shelter, humanitarian assistance and medical supplies to reach civilians, and for conditions that allow Palestinians to rebuild homes, schools, hospitals and communities. "The destruction is visible. The needs are known. What matters now is whether they are met," she said.
Jolie, a two-time Oscar winner, served as a UN Goodwill Ambassador and then Special Envoy for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, from 2001 to 2022.
Since October 2023, Israel's war in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and injured over 175,000 others, according to Palestinian figures. The same figures put the destruction of the enclave's infrastructure at about 90%.
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