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Palestinian journalist Muhannad Qishta longs to visit the graves of his sisters – Reem and Walaa – in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, but there is a problem: they are no longer on the map.
The tomb of Sheikh Mohammed in the Maan area of Khan Younis has been removed from the map, and replaced by tents and armored vehicles of the Israeli army, according to recently updated Google Earth images.
“Even the dead were not spared from the war,” Qishta told Al Jazeera. “How will I feel when I go to find that place like a desert, without the graves of my sisters so that I can read their prayer again?”
The stark images, taken on February 25, 2026, show areas where entire communities have been reduced to ashes, and the people who are left are being squeezed into squalid camps along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
For Palestinians, the revised maps provide a devastating, larger picture of a genocide that has claimed nearly 73,000 lives.
According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israeli forces have destroyed 94 percent of Gaza’s cemeteries, turning memorials into military barracks.
Removing geography and memory
Satellite images confirm that large residential areas have disappeared, changing the landscape of the Strip beyond recognition.
In Rafah, the scale of the destruction has made the neighborhood almost indistinguishable from the rest. The Saudi community of Tal as-Sultan – a huge project with 752 units – has been razed to huge piles of rubble.
US President Joe Biden first drew a ‘red line’ for the Rafah attack in early 2024, but Israel continued with its barbaric occupation. Israel did not face any consequences for its actions in Rafah, which was severely damaged.
Most views of southern Rafah now show rural roads wiped out, with only a few roads left amid the rubble.
In the far west, the Swedish village of Rafah has been wiped off the map, transformed from a coastal community of about 1,300 people, to a war zone. Founded in 1965 with the aid of Palestinian refugees, the economic life of the village was closely linked to the Mediterranean Sea.
Over the years, people have relied heavily on fishing, and many local fishing boats operated from the shores of the lake. The village had a small shopping center on the beach, a boat dock, and an extensive community center that was built as a gift from the Swedish people. Today, it has been converted into an Israeli military base, with only five buildings left standing.
The Rafah border crossing, once the only way to connect the besieged people with the outside world, has been abolished. Its civilian infrastructure – which previously housed the passenger and arrival elevators, a VIP reception area, a dedicated parking lot for humanitarian vehicles, and administrative offices for passport control and border communications – has been replaced by a high-security Israeli military observation post.
Towards the eastern areas of Bani Suhaila, Abasan and al-Zana, they are placing tanks between the houses of the common people. Before the war, these eastern districts were among the most densely populated areas of Khan Younis, with about 120,000 people living in multi-ethnic households.
Following heavy bombing, and the systematic demolition of entire blocks to draw battle lines, many people were forcibly evacuated. Many fled to the dry, overcrowded al-Mawasi tent camp on the coast, or crammed into the remaining schools and makeshift camps in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
Hamad city in Khan Younis – a residential building built with Qatari funds – is now a dilapidated shell surrounded by refugee families. The $135m public housing project consisted of 53 modern five-storey buildings, housing approximately 3,000 units.
Before its destruction, Hamad city was home to more than 15,000 people, mostly low-income families displaced by past conflicts. The picture depicts buildings that have been turned into piles of rubbish.
The breakdown of the system extends to the educational foundations of the sector. UNICEF says more than 97 percent of schools have been damaged or destroyed, leaving 658,000 children without education for more than two years. Universities have either been bombed or turned into refugee camps.
The Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), which educated more than 20,000 students, and Al-Azhar University, which enrolled more than 16,000 students, have been destroyed. Both major schools, along with Al-Israa University in the south, were also reorganized through military-controlled units, ending the educational future of thousands of young Palestinians.
‘Close to starvation’
The agricultural and green areas of Rafah and Khan Younis were once the food basket of the region. The fertile fields produced many of Gaza’s vegetables, including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, citrus fruits and olives, along with many greenhouses that provide more than 40 percent of the Strip’s daily food supply. Today, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that less than five percent of Gaza’s agricultural land is usable.
In the Shakoush area, Israeli bulldozers have destroyed greenhouses and taken topsoil, adding to the man-made hunger of the people.
“The nature of the search for food is brutal, and we are close to a famine that will strike at any time,” said Ola Abu Moamer, a Palestinian journalist in Khan Younis. “Many families return with empty pots from the soup kitchen, without food,” he told Al Jazeera.
With 1.9 million of the 2.3 million Palestinians displaced – many forced to flee more than 10 times – and 60 percent of the population displaced, families are forced into a shrinking community.
Satellite images show the proliferation of refugee camps in the al-Mawasi area, where dilapidated tents are packed tightly together, pressing against the land.
Work development
The documentary evidence of mass destruction provides a direct plan from the Israeli government to increase its military activity. In a video recorded by Israel’s Channel 12 and broadcast on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. he instructed the soldiers to increase his authority.
“Right now, we control 60 percent of the Gaza Strip … and my order is to reach … 70 percent,” Netanyahu told the crowd. “We’ll start with this.”
Despite the “ceasefire” of the United States last October that established the “Yellow Line” separating the occupied territories, the military is making progress. Experts say that Israel will continue to occupy Gaza and violate the agreement reached with Hamas in October.
In mid-March, the Israeli army quietly distributed maps to aid organizations showing that it had seized 64 percent of Palestinian territory, denying Palestinians access to two-thirds of the land. Israel had to withdraw from the second phase of the ceasefire agreement.
The agreement has failed to stop the bloodshed. Al Jazeera statistics recorded at least 2,400 violations of Israel between October and April, the number of bombardments that conflict monitors warn has increased since the US-Israel war on Iran began in February.
Nickolay MladenovThe head of the US-backed peace process in Gaza warned the UN Security Council last week that the destruction of the region could be “permanent”.
For the Palestinians who are enduring this, the horror goes much deeper than the collapsed buildings. Abu Moamer also said that journalists often turn off their cameras in respect to the tears of children who cry for their childhood.
“Satellites take pictures of destroyed houses, but they can’t record how someone wants their house without benefit,” Qishta, a Palestinian journalist, said. “The most difficult thing is not the destruction itself, but the stories buried under it.”
