Angelina Jolie highlights Gaza destruction with Google Earth satellite images

Actor Angelina Jolie, a former longtime UN special envoy, highlighted the scale of destruction in the Gaza Strip, sharing before-and-after satellite images showing extensive damage caused by the Israeli genocide across the Palestinian enclave.

“You can now open Google Earth and see what was done to Gaza,” Jolie wrote on Instagram on Saturday alongside images comparing areas in Gaza before the war with their appearance this summer.

The images show areas near the Al-Qadisiyah School in the city of Rafah, Khan Younis in southern Gaza, and Omar Mukhtar Street in Gaza City, with large sections of previously dense urban areas lying in ruins.

“Whole neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble,” Jolie said, adding that homes, schools, universities, hospitals, roads, water and sanitation systems and other infrastructure had been damaged or destroyed.

Citing the UN satellite analysis, Jolie said that as of this June, 82% of structures in Gaza had been damaged and roughly two-thirds of the damaged structures were assessed as destroyed.

She also cited humanitarian 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.

Jolie said the satellite imagery helps show the physical scale of the destruction but falls short of conveying 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.

She called for shelter, humanitarian assistance, and medical supplies to reach civilians and for conditions to be created to 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,” Jolie said.

Jolie, a two-time Oscar winner, served as a UN Goodwill Ambassador and then Special Envoy for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, for over 20 years, from 2001 to 2022.

Since October 2023, Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and injured over 175,000 others, while also destroying about 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure, according to Palestinian figures.