Al-Mawasi in Rafah in 2023 (left) and 2026, with huge tented camps lining much of the shoreline. Composite: Google
Satellite imagery shows further destruction of homes, businesses and places of worship since fragile ceasefire
An update to Google Maps has revealed the extent of devastation during the three-year Gaza war and the severity of the continuing humanitarian crisis faced by the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants.
The images were taken in June this year and show further destruction of homes, businesses, places of worship and infrastructure since a fragile ceasefire came into effect almost 12 months ago.
They show huge tented camps lining much of the shoreline, often within a few metres of the sea. Gaza’s once busy main port, now badly damaged and empty of fishing boats, is surrounded by makeshift accommodation. Any available open space in Gaza City is packed with shacks, tents and huts.
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More than 2.1 million displaced people are living in tents and temporary shelters in Gaza, where about 82% of structures – roughly 200,000 buildings – have been damaged, with about two-thirds of those destroyed, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa.
A recent UN assessment estimated that the number of destroyed structures across Gaza had increased by 9% since the declaration of a ceasefire in October 2025.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN Headquarters in New York, United States, on September 24, 2026. [Mehmet Eser – Anadolu Agency]
The Israeli occupation leadership has long been accustomed to staging bizarre spectacles on some of the world’s most prominent international platforms, but what Benjamin Netanyahu did during his latest appearance on 25th September 2026 surpassed all expectations. The leading suspect wanted by the International Criminal Court took to the podium to deliver his annual speech at the 81st session of the General Assembly carrying a Starlink satellite dish. He went so far as to display a piece of technological explosive equipment in full view of the world, appearing in the form of a handheld communications device.
This is not entirely new. Year after year, Netanyahu has become accustomed to performing his theatrical tricks on the platform of the United Nations General Assembly, bringing to New York each time propaganda boards, photographs and drawings accompanied by provocative and elaborate spectacles.
Yet, until September 2026, the world’s foremost international forum had never witnessed a Starlink satellite dish being displayed in this manner, nor had a representative of a member state dared to carry and boast about an apparent explosive device in full view.
The Israeli Prime Minister took to the podium holding up a Starlink satellite device, using it as a prop to divert attention from the international condemnation he had anticipated would once again empty the UN hall, as it had the previous year, with dozens of delegates walking out as he began speaking. This time, he appeared determined to pull more rabbits from his magic hat, drawing attention away from the embarrassment of addressing a largely empty hall while once again resorting to his familiar theatrical style, marked by arrogance and provocation.
The Israeli prime minister knows that this approach cannot convince a world that can see the reality on the ground.
The notorious war criminal is not primarily concerned with winning hearts and minds or appealing to the conscience of nations horrified by the atrocities of genocide, ethnic cleansing, occupation, settlement and arrogance.
Netanyahu sought to distract the world with an entirely different narrative centred on Iran’s restrictions on this satellite technology, in the hope of obscuring the reality witnessed by the entire world, while naturally ignoring the restrictions imposed by the occupation and genocide regime on Starlink in the Gaza Strip, for example.
One of the purposes of this theatrical appearance was to portray Israel’s most prominent official as an extremely confident speaker, still capable of creating events, setting the pace like a conductor and controlling the international narrative. This was essentially a domestic electoral speech, even though he was once again isolated as he addressed the General Assembly, whose seats were largely emptied in protest at his appearance, while the Israeli delegation busied itself giving him a standing ovation. What matters to Netanyahu is to appear once again in images that seize attention and dominate the headlines of the world’s media, through an extraordinary and striking scene featuring a Starlink satellite dish on the General Assembly platform. What a spectacle!
Over the years, Netanyahu has come to define a new Israeli approach to addressing the international community, characterised by excessive theatrics, arrogance, provocation and moralising, and far removed from the traditions of diplomatic dignity and measured language.
It is also marked by a barrage of carefully crafted accusations against those bold enough to remind the world of rights, justice and international law, among them Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of the city that hosts the world’s foremost international forum.
Representatives of the occupation’s ‘diplomacy’ follow Netanyahu’s theatrical school in their public appearances. One of them is Ambassador Danny Danon, who appeared in a video strutting through the corridors of the General Assembly, accompanied by a camera phone carried by one of his aides, during an extraordinary episode of verbal harassment directed at the Iranian delegation. The troublemaker Danon also carried the same Starlink device and repeatedly urged the Iranian delegation to take it to Tehran. This blatant provocation is, in reality, designed to portray Israel’s internationally isolated position as self-confident, as though it still has something to say and something to initiate in full view of the world; as though it remains capable of lecturing others about values and freedom of expression, and of continuing to manufacture events and distract the world with sensational stories, as if no genocide had taken place in Gaza in full view of the world. Danon has not abandoned his style of arrogance and provocation, even towards international figures. He went so far as to call UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese a ‘witch’ after she presented her report to a General Assembly committee on the genocide in Gaza on 28th October 2025. Danon attacked Albanese at the time, saying: “Ms Albanese, you are a witch, and this report is another page in your spell book.”
There is nothing new in this. Representatives of ‘Israeli diplomacy’ have become accustomed to launching fierce verbal attacks against UN officials themselves, as former Israeli envoy Gilad Erdan did in his repeated attacks on UN Secretary-General António Guterres. He said, for example, that Guterres had “lost his moral compass” (November 2023), accused him of “blindness to terrorism” (January 2024), and went so far as to say: “The only one who should be blacklisted is the Secretary-General, who encourages terrorism, and whose decisions are driven by hatred of Israel” (June 2024).
The most significant international precedent brought by the Israeli leadership to the General Assembly platform during the 81st session, however, was the display and flaunting of a model of a deadly explosive device in full view of the world. The Israeli prime minister showcased one of his country’s achievements: the booby-trapping of communications devices and their transformation into tools for killing, maiming and injuring on a scale unprecedented in the world.
Netanyahu pulled a pager from his pocket and proudly displayed it, showcasing the lethal technological capabilities of Israel’s intelligence services, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that this particular device caused deaths, injuries, mutilation and terror among children and women on a large scale in Lebanon.
In his speech, Netanyahu sought to highlight the Israeli occupation leadership’s continued exploitation of available technologies for control, targeting, killing and destruction. This was essentially an ‘achievement’ message aimed primarily at the Israeli public. What the war criminal did not say was that humanity’s advances in technology, communications and software are being harnessed in a race to serve the occupation’s programme of control, domination, oppression, genocide and accelerating ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The international community has yet to fully confront the use of artificial intelligence to commit war crimes on an unprecedented scale. This is among the issues exposed by reports and testimonies, including the documentary film NAZA, made by two Israelis who recently received an honorary award at the Venice Film Festival and which provided detailed operational accounts of such practices.
The rounds of provocation and arrogance staged by Israeli occupation leaders in diplomatic corridors should not surprise the international community, so long as it continues to allow those who have trampled humanitarian conventions and international law underfoot to take to the world’s most prominent platforms and deliver theatrical speeches, rather than face international justice.
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A large group of Jewish and Muslim demonstrators carrying banners and Palestinian flags march from Bryant Park toward the United Nations headquarters to protest the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump regarding the war in Gaza in New York, United States, on September 24, 2026. [Waleed Zein – Anadolu Agency]
To claim that Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza has fundamentally changed the internal politics of the United States and the wider world might be an overstatement. But what cannot be overstated is a simple fact: Israel and its policies no longer enjoy the virtually unlimited approval and support in the US that they once taken for granted. At both the local and national levels, support for Israel has weakened significantly, while across Europe, too, political attitudes toward Israel have changed in ways that would have been difficult to imagine just three years ago.
To see that change in Europe just consider the new position taken by the United Kingdom toward Israel, particularly over the occupied West Bank. In earlier September, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband accused Israeli settler terrorists of perpetrating ethnic cleansing against Palestinians and announced new measures targeting Israel’s settlement enterprise, including sanctions and a ban on imports. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who just two months before taking office, apologized for Labour’s initial response to the war on Gaza for being too slow to respond to Israel’s genocide. He has said Britain must put more pressure on the Israeli government and consider further sanctions. These are not the positions Britain was taking just a few years ago.
In America it is even more evident that Israel is losing the support it once enjoyed. It would have been unthinkable just three years ago that large sections of the American public would challenge their government’s traditionally unconditional support for Israel.
Opinion polls are showing a trend of negative opinion toward Israel. Last July, an Economist/YouGov poll found that 47 percent of Americans believed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was guilty of war crimes in Gaza, while 43 percent said Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians. Nearly half, 49 percent, said the US should arrest Netanyahu if he entered the country. Even more strikingly, a February 2026 Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Americans sympathized more with Palestinians in the Middle East conflict. From 2001 through 2025, Israelis had consistently enjoyed a double-digit advantage on this measure. In 2026, for the first time in Gallup’s long-running series, Palestinians moved ahead of Israelis in Americans’ sympathies.
The change is visible beyond polling booths and political rallies.
On September 24, Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon and Emmy-winning actress Hannah Einbinder were among more than 100 people arrested in New York during a protest against Netanyahu outside the United Nations, where demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. arms supplies to Israel.
Hollywood star Mark Ruffalo was among more than 1,800 actors, entertainers and producers, including Nicolas Gage and Emma Stone, who signed a pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions over the war. What was once largely confined to the margins of American political debate has consequently become part of mainstream public discourse.
Politically speaking, the shift is becoming increasingly visible at the grassroots level and in electoral contests across the US. One of the clearest examples is the rise of Zohran Mamdani, who defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary before going on to win the general election. Cuomo had made support for Israel one of the central issues of his campaign, while Mamdani was an outspoken critic of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and a supporter of Palestinian rights, going as far as to threaten to have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if he came to New York. The ability of a candidate with such positions to win in New York — home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel — was itself politically significant. It indicates even Jewish people are not supporting Israeli actions.
The same shift is visible in the growing difficulty faced by AIPAC, the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States, and its affiliated groups in some Democratic primaries.
In Michigan, AIPAC and its affiliated groups spent nearly $30 million backing pro Israel Representative, Haley Stevens, against progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal critic of U.S. military aid to Israel. El-Sayed nevertheless won the Democratic Senate primary on August 4 by about 48.5% of the vote.
The November midterm elections will provide a much broader test of whether this change in public opinion is beginning to translate into electoral politics.
Furthermore, the shift has also begun to show itself inside Congress in ways that would have been extremely difficult to imagine only a few years ago. On July 15, the House of Representatives voted on an amendment that would have cut $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel from a broader national security spending bill. True the amendment failed but 103 Democrats and one Republican voted in favour of the cut. In other words, more than half of all House Democrats backed an effort to cut military aid to Israel — an extraordinary departure from the traditionally strong bipartisan support for Israel in Congress. The vote is significant because of the number of lawmakers prepared to break with the established position on U.S. military support for Israel. With the November midterm elections approaching, such a vote provides another indication that the political debate over Israel and U.S. support for it is no longer confined to the margins of American politics.
What has changed in the US is not simply the intensity of criticism of Israel, but the political space in which it now operates. What was once largely treated as a settled pro-Israel bipartisan consensus is increasingly being challenged by voters, activists, candidates and members of Congress. The shift is visible in opinion polls, in the streets, in Democratic primaries and even on the floor of the House of Representatives. None of this means that support for Israel has disappeared from American politics; it plainly has not. But the political consensus surrounding it is no longer what it was. The November midterm elections will show whether this change in public opinion and political activism has become a lasting force in American electoral politics or just a temporary shift.
Whatever the outcome of the midterms, however, it will be difficult for Israel to return to the position it once occupied in American public life — as a state that could count on being treated by much of American public opinion and the political establishment as virtually beyond criticism.
It will be interesting to watch whether Democrats on the left who make it into the next Congress will use foreign policy, including U.S. support for Israel, as an issue in their dealings with pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans, including the president himself.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
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Green MP, Adrian Ramsay, has responded to Ed Miliband’s speech at Labour conference, where he said that parties that deny the dangers posed by the climate crisis are a threat to national security. The foreign secretary went on to ask: “Let us therefore ask each and every party, where do you stand on tackling the climate crisis?
Adrian Ramsay said “Ed Miliband is right to highlight the threat that climate breakdown poses to our national security – though the government is still to release all the evidence UK intelligence agencies have provided on this.
“The Foreign Secretary also asked today where each and every party stands on tackling the climate crisis. Good question.
“The Green Party is unequivocal: no new drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. No green light for a third runway at Heathrow. And we want to see massive investment in upgrading our homes, cleaning up our energy system, and improving transport to tackle the climate crisis and cut people’s bills.”
“So we ask Labour: where do you stand on these issues?”
Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
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Four Palestinians were killed and several others, including children, were injured in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday amid daily violations of a ceasefire agreement in effect since Oct. 10, 2025.
A medical source at Al-Shifa Hospital told Anadolu that the bodies of two Palestinians and several injured people, including children, were brought to the hospital after an Israeli airstrike targeted an apartment in the Al-Nasr neighborhood west of Gaza City.
According to an Anadolu correspondent, the strike targeted an apartment in the Al-Batoul building, killing two Palestinians and injuring several others, including children.
Witnesses said an Israeli suicide drone carried out the strike after hovering over the area shortly before the attack.
The strike caused panic among residents and sparked a fire in the apartment, which was completely destroyed, they said.
Local sources identified the two Palestinians killed in the strike as Izz al-Din al-Beik and Muhannad Abu Foul.
In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz claimed that al-Beik was a commander of Hamas’ northern Gaza brigade.
There was no immediate comment on the Israeli claim.
In central Gaza, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli army gunfire on Salah al-Din Street east of Deir al-Balah, according to a medical source.
Another Palestinian was killed in an Israeli strike targeting a group of people near the Al-Fakhoura clinic in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army carried out a major demolition operation targeting buildings inside areas under its control east of Deir al-Balah, according to witnesses and local sources.
Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement have killed 1,422 Palestinians and injured 4,996 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry on Tuesday.
Since Oct. 8, 2023, Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and injured over 175,000 others, while around 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been destroyed.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Ed Miliband claims that he and Andy Burnham have reformulated Blair’s triangulation strategy. Their new formulation entails acknowledging that they were wrong on Israel and Palestine but entails doing absolutely nothing about it and continuing exactly the same policies hoping that you’re too stupid to notice.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
