Updated Google Maps shows destruction of the city of Rafah

sslowin about 3 hours ago 41 commentsRead Article on twitter.com

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Discussion (41 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

neom•about 2 hours ago

If you want to compare before and after:

https://earth.google.com/web/search/31%2e297226,+34%2e243649... - then click "show historical imagery" next to the search box.

drcongo•about 2 hours ago

The horror of the "Playground" marker here: https://earth.google.com/web/@31.28532193,34.25349609,77.611...

Leonard_of_Q•about 1 hour ago

80 years ago "updated map shows the destruction of the city of Berlin"

Same for Tokyo

Same but even more for Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Not to mention Dresden

All of these have one thing in common: they are cities in countries which started a war and suffered the consequences of that decision. The fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo were not in any way humane actions but when was war ever humane?

biimugan•44 minutes ago

What belief is being expressed in your comments? That if someone wins a military conflict, any action they took is justified? That seems like either moral relativism or ahistorical, blind patriotism. The Soviets also won that war -- does that mean they were justified in their constellations of gulags?

If anything, the more apt historical comparison is to the Czechoslovakian and Polish partisans who wanted nothing less than to harry the Germans on (or within) their borders before the war. The British and French ambassadors (i.e. Qatar, etc) took great pains to try and convince the Polish and Czechoslovakian governments to restrain their partisans from attacking German people or positions, since they suspected Germany would use any and all provocation, no matter how small, as a casus belli. Anyone who's read a bit of WW2 history also knows how often the German government attempted to engineer exactly these kinds of events to justify their aggression.

It sounds straight out of the Likud playbook, doesn't it? But in what universe does an attack that kills 1000 people, a good number of them active duty soldiers, justify killing and maiming over 100,000 civilians and leveling hundreds of thousands of buildings? If the shoe were on the other foot, this implies Hamas also has the moral imperative to do just the same to Israel. That's moral relativism for you.

Perhaps Europe had a better understanding of this topic when they instituted the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian law after the war than we do today, 100 years out, trying to now claim none of it actually matters and the means justify the ends.

dumberquestions•about 1 hour ago

History didn't start on October 7th.

lotadicarus•about 1 hour ago

this is not war, it is genocide

Leonard_of_Q•about 1 hour ago

It is war and why did you feel the need to create an account just to repeat this false claim? The term "genocide" can now be added to the list of terms which have lost they meaning like racist, nazi, fascist, white supremacist and all those other labels which are bandied around willy-nilly. Just use your real account, what are you afraid of?

lotadicarus•43 minutes ago

was always a lurker so never had an account. I just think it's important to counter Israel's misinformation campaign :) very telling you think those words have lost their meaning though. I don't think we need further discussion

bjork•about 1 hour ago

It’s not genocide in any way, shape or form. Please use other sources than TikTok.

sjoedev•33 minutes ago

I don’t use TikTok, but I’ll chip in and cite the United Nations [1], the International Association of Genocide Scholars [2], Physicians for Human Rights-Israel [3], Amnesty International [4], Human Rights Watch [5], and Doctors Without Borders [6] to get started.

If you’d like to share some sources (rather than only telling others to), maybe we can compare.

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-c...

[2] https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS...

[3] https://www.phr.org.il/en/genocide-in-gaza-eng/

[4] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...

[5] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-exterminat...

[6] https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/our-response-is...

mittensc•29 minutes ago

Imagine this was Jerusalem

would you say the same?

lotadicarus•about 1 hour ago

try using a source other than the Israeli government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humanitarian_and_human...

bognition•about 1 hour ago

Its really telling to see the destruction limited to where the structures used to be rather than to all of the surrounding green spaces. If the destruction of civilian dwellings was purely an accident you'd expect to see the destruction spread evenly over the area. Instead it looks much more like a prolonged set of surgical strikes to destroy the buildings while preserving as much of the surrounding areas as possible.

For a great example of this, look at this pin https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZcMbdFcx87PrqoYNA

And here's a pin of where the farms were spared https://maps.app.goo.gl/iZbbTH4iH27FCz4s9

biimugan•32 minutes ago

I don't quite understand your argument here. In your first pin I'm struggling to find a single building that isn't leveled, or at least severely damaged. Even buildings far away from the city center in the boonies are leveled.

ImPostingOnHN•about 1 hour ago

They just use bulldozers to flatten whatever the bombs don't. They can drive a bulldozer pretty precisely, especially when they don't care who's in front of it or under it.

Caterpillar even supplies the IDF with bulldozers just for this purpose, which then get up-armored and sent into Palestinian civilian areas to do this (including unmanned versions).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDF_Caterpillar_D9

AuthAuth•about 1 hour ago

By the time the bulldozers are there civilians have long moved out of the area.

ImPostingOnHN•about 1 hour ago

Interesting claim. Where did you hear that?

wilburx3•about 2 hours ago

The icons from what was there before are a haunting digital ghost. School, Restaurant, Pharmacy all the city is just rubble.

AuthAuth•about 1 hour ago

They kept hostages to intentionally get this result.

the_origami_fox•43 minutes ago

It's so great to see that this thread is not filled with the usual violent, racist, hateful antizionist speech that accompanies anything to do with Israel on HackerNews. And people are pushing back against the genocide claim.

igleria•about 2 hours ago

Atomic dome vibes when looking at some of the few buildings still standing

peter_retief•about 2 hours ago

This should not be allowed on HN.

Each to their own beliefs but this is propoganda.

ImPostingOnHN•about 1 hour ago

Calling this "propaganda" is propaganda.

peter_retief•about 1 hour ago

Sure, buildings were demolished, is that unusual in a war zone?

ImPostingOnHN•about 1 hour ago

> Sure, buildings were demolished, is that unusual in a war zone?

I'm going to assume good faith in your framing, rather than intentional minimization. Suffice it to say, more has happened than "buildings were demolished", and those more things are the subject of the article. Like, for example, an entire city systemically flattened with every single civilian inhabitant killed or exiled on their own land.

To answer your question in that context: yes, that is unusual in war these days, because it is tantamount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

ChrisArchitect•about 1 hour ago

non-X Google Maps link to ~location of screenshot: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2857778,34.2533333,1010m

saturn_vk•about 1 hour ago

It's sad that most world leaders do nothing to combat such genocide. There are so few sanctions against the state, or specific people, of Israel. Foreign forums are very much still open for business to them.

bjork•about 1 hour ago

Still no genocide no matter how much Macklemore wants it to be.

phantompeace•about 1 hour ago

History will look back on people like you quite unfavourably.

ImPostingOnHN•about 1 hour ago

Please. We can judge for ourselves, and don't need you to try this "jedi mind trick" schtick.

Please try posting more constructive content than unconvincing, blanket denials. It doesn't make for good discussion.

lenerdenator•about 2 hours ago

Another one to look at is the maps of Ukraine [0]

[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/google-maps-...

purpleflame1257•about 2 hours ago

Urban warfare destroys buildings. Film at 11.

mobelkh•about 2 hours ago

cities do not get systematically flattened with bulldozers in urban warfare, you only completely wipe out cities when you don't want any the civilians to come back.

db48x•35 minutes ago

This is so dumb. If the people who lived here come back then the first thing they will have to do is bulldoze all the buildings before they can rebuild. Bulldozing the buildings cannot be a genocide if it is also a necessary step to rebuilding.

ardit33•about 2 hours ago

nah... it is explicit genocide, and the deliberate destruction of every civilian possible. Everyone knows what's going on.

the_origami_fox•37 minutes ago

It was not a genocide. It was the deliberate destruction of the urban tunnel and terror network that the government of Gaza aka Hamas built in preparation for war with Israel. The population of Gaza is already at pre-war levels (of we exclude the 100,000 who evacuated) and was not "genocided"