Satellite Images Show Israeli Military Positions in Areas of Khan Younis and Rafah Previously Used as Civilian Sites

Satellite images updated on Google Earth and captured on February 25, 2026, show the Sheikh Mohammed cemetery in the Maan area of Khan Younis transformed into an Israeli military outpost with tents and armoured vehicles. Palestinian journalist Muhannad Qishta said he cannot visit the graves of his sisters Reem and Walaa because the cemetery no longer exists on the map.

“Even the dead have not been spared from this war,” Qishta stated.

High-resolution pictures from the same date show entire neighbourhoods in Gaza reduced to ash, with the surviving population in encampments on Mediterranean beaches. Israeli forces have fully or partially destroyed 94 percent of Gaza’s cemeteries, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

In Rafah, the Saudi neighbourhood in Tal as-Sultan, a 752-unit housing project, has been flattened into rubble.

The Swedish village in Rafah, founded in 1965 and home to roughly 1,300 people whose economy was based on fishing, now contains only five houses standing and functions as an Israeli military outpost. The Rafah border crossing’s civilian infrastructure, including passenger halls, VIP terminal, logistics facility, and administrative offices, has been replaced by Israeli military observation posts and razor wire.

Eastern neighbourhoods of Bani Suhaila, Abasan, and al-Zana in Khan Younis, previously home to nearly 120,000 residents, have been largely emptied after bombardment and demolition.

Hamad City in Khan Younis, a $135 million Qatari-funded project with 53 five-story buildings containing approximately 3,000 housing units and over 15,000 residents, has been reduced to rubble. More than 97 percent of schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to UNICEF, leaving 658,000 children without formal learning for more than two years.