Geolocating Aerial Warfare in Gaza
by Chris Osieck & Gabòr Friesen
Introduction
Gaza is one of the areas that may sound uncomfortable to open source researchers due to the quality of satellite imagery having been abysmally poor and outdated. This was a result of a law from the United States called the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment (Public Law 104–201, Section 1064, part of the Military Defense National Defense Authorization Act for 1997). On 25 June, 2020, after 2 years of pressure from academics and civil society, the KBA was reformed but Google has refused to update the images on Google Maps and Google Earth Pro fully since then.
“If all things are equal — there are no legislative restrictions, there is available imagery, and so on — there’s no reason to explain why Gaza in particular has old, low-resolution imagery,” Aric Toler, director of training and research at open source research organization Bellingcat, told Motherboard in an online chat.
“Google Won’t Say If It Will Update Its Blurry Maps of Gaza” by Motherboard, Tech by Vice.
Considering the amount of violence in Gaza, I have always seen no reason why satellite imagery remained degraded after the US law mentioned above was no longer extant. Satellite imagery has repeatedly shown throughout the years to be an instrument to hold those who are powerful to account, and to establish verifiable facts in places during events which would otherwise be difficult or dangerous to operate in. That services like Google have continued on keeping the quality low for this long is unacceptable and has reduced the capacity to monitor Israeli violations.
As the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have been pressed into territorial isolation and a draining blockade for more than 10 years, where gradual closures since 1991 have today resulted in total Israeli control over their borders, land, airspace, sea, monetary and business transactions, it simultaneously also put itself in a position of power in the digital environment. Israel obscures these Palestinians their view and controls what they can see.
The Israeli government has their own type of satellite map but in the case of the Gaza Strip, it has applied a white blank slate over its entirety. Similar to how China’s Baidu blanked out parts of its mapping platform to hide the prisons and internment camps in Xinjiang. The fact that states want to control people’s ability to use satellite imagery, displays how powerful it is for open source researchers, human rights organizations, and journalists to use against them.
Operation Shield and Arrow
On 9 May 2023, Operation Shield and Arrow started with a series of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, that lasted four days until Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israel agreed to a ceasefire on 13 May 2023. Three suspected leaders of the PIJ were killed while 10 civilians were also killed.
As images and videos started to spread on social-media, I noticed that in the beginning a few people from Project Owl, the open-source intelligence community, were active in geolocating airstrikes but as time passed by, they started to be less involved with it. This could have many reasons, most open source researchers are ordinary citizens such as myself, who have a job in retail, finance, or healthcare, to fulfill in their daily lives while trying to do something good for the world next to that.
But I’ve also received messages in the past from people on how to apply geolocation-research in Gaza. It is difficult and requires you to learn how archaeologists conduct their work. Archaeologists ask many questions and develop hypotheses. They collect evidence to choose a dig site, then bring in scientific sampling techniques to select where on the site to dig. They observe, record, categorize, and interpret what they find.
As an open source researcher investigating events such as these in Gaza, you will have to collect as much footage in the forms of images and videos available on an incident, make an analysis by watching the material in slow motion, set a hypothesis, choose where to look, and apply different techniques while committing yourself to complete the geolocation.
Airstrike near Beit Lahiya Cemetery, 13 May, 2023.
On 13 May, 2023, Emanuel Fabian, military correspondent from Times of Israel, shared a video originally posted by ALRAY Palestinian Media Agency, that displayed an airstrike near the Sheikh Salim Abu Muslim Mosque in Beit Lahiya.
As you may have read earlier on my blog, mosques can be used as guidance sensors in occupied Palestine to lead you towards the exact coordinates of an incident. However, landmarks are less easier to identify due to the lack of quality in satellite imagery in Gaza, which makes it more difficult to count backwards to the location where the airstrike landed. To create a wider view of the area, the suggestion now is to collect more footage of this moment.
Another poster, Lance Dyer, also shared footage of the airstrike from another angle. The video clip shows a building near the mosque with written text on it that appears to be slanted with a square or roundabout in front of it.
To provide yourself of a small upgrade in satellite imagery to view the structures and area better, download the layers from Bing Maps via this website and import them in your Google Earth Pro desktop version. It makes Gaza become more identifiable for you as Bing its coverage is more up-to-date than Google.
By adding WikiMapia as a layer in Google Earth Pro, you’ll be able to see descriptions and useful information on geographical objects while conducting research and discover that what you are looking at are the Beit Lahiya Roundabout, Beit Lahiya Cemetery, Dental Clinic of Dr. Saud Romia, the Al-Shikh Saad mosque, and the Sheikh Salim Abu Muslim mosque.
Cross-referencing the geographical features to the video footage, we can be confident to say that the airstrike hit at the following coordinates: 31.54803761602032, 34.49995848939983.
The aftermath of an airstrike mostly tends to receive coverage afterwards via Israeli- or Palestinian media. That enables you to look further to see if it was the exact geolocation or that it was one that was more in vicinity of the target.
“At approximately 10:05 a.m. the same day, Israeli warplanes launched two missiles at the three-story house of Faraj Fathi Banat, 39, in the vicinity of Beit Lahiya roundabout (North Gaza District). Three families of 22 people, including 12 children and four women, lived in the house. The attack led to the injury of two women with minor injuries and completely destroyed the house. Property damage was caused to neighboring houses and to the al-Shikh Saad mosque. Israeli forces called one of the house’s residents to inform him about their intention to strike the house.”
“Day 5: Israel continues to commit acts of ‘ domicide’ against Palestinian homes in Gaza, displacing hundreds of civilians”, Al Mezan Center For Human Rights.
Airstrike on the Taha family house, Beit Lahiya, 12 May, 2023.
On 12 May, 2023, Aurora Intel shared the following video footage of an airstrike that also took place in Beit Lahiya, a day earlier than the one described above, that took place in close vicinity to a gas station as we can see with the roof visible, the parked motorcycle, and a road that is used by traffic to move on.
The assumption that is quickly made is that this will be easily found. Only we tend to forget that places like Beit Lahiya have more than one gas station and several roads that appear to be the same. Like we did before, this is a case of first looking for more images and videos that are available.
Scotlandiya, an account that largely shares content about incidents happening in the West Bank and Gaza, wrote a message on Twitter that was added with a pair of four photos of the damage done to the house of Taha. One of these photos gives us an aerial view of the surrounding environment.
The blue building on the right in the background has the architectural features of a school mostly seen in occupied Palestine. Behind it, there’s the minaret of a mosque visible. At the end of the street where the airstrike destroyed the residential house of Taha, you can also see the tall grey building that is shown in the video shared by Aurora Intel and the gas station.
PALESTINE ONLINE shared the same video as Aurora Intel but gave an extra tip in the text that they wrote in their message on Twitter:
The moment when Israeli occupation warplanes destroyed the house of the Taha family near Al-Fakhoura School in the northern Gaza Strip.
With once more the help of WikiMapia, we managed to identify the Al-Fakhoura School in Beit Lahiya but also directly pinned down the Tal al-Zaatar School that is in the opposite direction.
If it would have been Al-Fakhoura School, the street with the gas station would have to run horizontally north from it. This makes it impossible for the minaret of the mosque to be east from the tall grey building seen in both the image and video. That’s why it’s likely the path in between the two schools.
Using images from the aftermath that are made available via websites such as GettyImages and Alamy to buy for the press, we were able to identify the house that was hit by the Israeli airstrike at the 31.544833, 34.495139 coordinates.
Simultaneously, Israeli warplanes launched two missiles at the house of Samir Mohammed Taha, 62, in al-Zawawi Street, east of Abbas al-Kilani gas station in Beit Lahiya (North Gaza District). Two families of eight members lived in the two-story house, including four children and two women. The attack completely destroyed the house and caused considerable property damage to some neighboring houses. Israeli forces called one of the neighbors to inform him of their intention to strike the house.
“Day 5: Israel continues to commit acts of ‘ domicide’ against Palestinian homes in Gaza, displacing hundreds of civilians”, Al Mezan Center For Human Rights.
According to Middle East Eye, 85-year old Shehdeh Taha, experienced two Nakbas. The first was in 1948 when he was 11 years old, as he was forcibly expelled amongst 750,000 Palestinians from their lands by Israel.
The second occurred in his 85th year, earlier this May, when Israeli warplanes destroyed his house while bombing an adjoining house, leaving him, his 19 sons and grandchildren homeless.
Airstrike on Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Iyad al-Hassani
“IDF confirms striking and killing head of Islamic Jihad’s operations, Iyad al-Hassani.” Emanuel Fabian reported on 12 May, 2023. “He is the sixth senior Islamic Jihad member to have been killed by Israel since Tuesday.” Paired with the news came the video of the strike that was published by the Israel Defense Forces.
The video displays the striking of the building that al-Hassani was located in but it doesn’t reveal much more of the area to be able to narrow down our search on. Aurora Intel also shared a recording made by a Palestinian citizen of Gaza City that showed more details where this happened: Al Nasr Street. We knew it was the same airstrike because the buildings matched the ones seen in the footage published by the IDF.
To find Al Nasr Street or Hayy al-Nasr district in Gaza City, is to visit Wikipedia and access the GeoHack Toolforge to lead you to it. While this won’t straight away bring you to the location of the airstrike, it will give you a starting point.
Al-Naser, as it is named in Google Maps, is a lengthy street but the geographic features displayed in the video footage are quite distinct and will be able to stand out while you are scrolling down the road.
Moving into one of the streets to the east, we turned around the view in Google Earth Pro with the visual material in mind and managed to match the location, including the target of the airstrike, at the 31.530278, 34.456250 coordinates.
Simultaneously, Israeli warplanes launched a missile at an apartment on the fifth floor of the Banyas building, which consists of six floors, in al-Nassr neighborhood, in the west of Gaza City, killing the Islamic Jihad leader Iyad al-Hasani, 51, and Mohammed Walid Abdelal, 33, and injuring others, including two children. The attack caused property damage to some of the neighboring apartments.
“Day 5: Israel continues to commit acts of ‘ domicide’ against Palestinian homes in Gaza, displacing hundreds of civilians”, Al Mezan Center For Human Rights.
Airstrike on Palestinian Islamic Jihad member Muhammad Abu al-Ata
On 13 May, 2023, the Israel Defense Forces shared footage of the airstrike on Palestinian Islamic Jihad member, Muhammad Abu Al-Ata, on Twitter. Simultaneously, Intel Doge, described that it happened in the eastern part of the Shejaiya neighborhood in Gaza.
By first navigating to the Shejaiya neighborhood using the GeoHack Toolforge, we started placing pins at intersections as a method of excluding what is no longer relevant during the geolocation-research. In this manner, you’ll eventually have the most potential ones remaining only to further pinpoint the exact place.
Thus, we know that the airstrike on the apartment of Muhammad Abu al-Ata took place at the following coordinates: 31.497056, 34.473500.
“At approximately 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, 13 May 2023, Israeli warplanes launched four missiles at the three-story house of Salim Hassan Abu al-Ata, 60, in al-Tawahin Street, east of al-Shujaeya neighborhood, east of Gaza City. Two families of 20 people, including 13 children and two women, lived in the house. The attack caused considerable damage to the second and third floors and caused property damage in neighboring houses. Israeli forces called the owner of the house to inform him of their intention to strike it.”
“Day 5: Israel continues to commit acts of ‘ domicide’ against Palestinian homes in Gaza, displacing hundreds of civilians”, Al Mezan Center For Human Rights.
Airstrike in Zeitoun neighborhood, Gaza.
Nour Odeh posted on 13 May, 2023: “This airstrike leveled an entire residential building in Gaza City’s AlZaitoun neighborhood.” Additional reporting shared that this was in the vicinity of “Koskho Street” and while that appeared to not be the location that we were looking for, it did bring us eventually to the right spot.
By first discovering that a few airstrikes took place in the neighborhood nearby the Salah Al Deen Mosque (31.497234945614753, 34.4579431571057), we looked for additional images via the press or stockphoto websites. Only to discover the following picture via agefotostock.com:
The image gives away that it’s in the al-Zeitoun neighboorhood in an area that has agricultural activity nearby as you can see by the greenhouse in the back. By navigating ourselves further S/W (southwest) from Salah Al Deen Mosque, we managed to find the location of the house that got brought down to the ground due to an Israeli airstrike at the 31.485750, 34.456333 coordinates.
Update in Gaza by Google?
During our geolocation-research on these airstrikes, we came across the moment that we zoomed in on Google Earth Pro and Google Maps. What happened is that the satellite imagery started to change from — the usual — horrendous quality to better quality when zooming in deep.
Afterwards this has stayed when zooming out but displayed that a part of the Gaza Strip such as Beit Lahiya was updated since 22 April, 2022, whereas Gaza City has remained bad as seen in the following screenshot:
Google might have finally decided to give the images an update but not entirely yet.
We hope you enjoyed this blog entry and learned from our methodologies used to apply geolocation-research in the Gaza Strip yourselves.
