Angelina Jolie highlights Gaza destruction in satellite images, calls for urgent aid
Angelina Jolie has shared before-and-after satellite images showing extensive destruction across Gaza and called for urgent shelter, medical supplies and humanitarian assistance before winter.
- Angelina Jolie shared satellite comparisons showing extensive destruction across Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza City.
- She cited UN analysis estimating that 82% of Gaza structures had been damaged by 16 June.
- Jolie called for urgent shelter, medical supplies and sustained humanitarian access before winter.
Hollywood actress and former special envoy to the UN refugee agency Angelina Jolie has shared before-and-after satellite images of areas across the Gaza Strip, highlighting the extent of destruction after nearly three years of war and calling for urgent humanitarian assistance.
“You can now open Google Earth and see what was done to Gaza,” Jolie wrote on Instagram on Saturday.
The images compare areas before the war with their appearance this summer, including locations near Al-Qadisiyah School in Rafah, Khan Younis in southern Gaza and Omar Mukhtar Street in Gaza City. Large sections of previously dense urban areas appear reduced to rubble and bare ground, with roads, schools, mosques and other landmarks surrounded by widespread destruction.
The updated imagery appeared online the previous week, prompting expressions of shock on social media over the extent of the devastation. Google has not said when the images were published or made available.
“Whole neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble,” Jolie wrote, listing homes, schools, universities, hospitals, roads, water and sanitation systems and other infrastructure among what had been damaged or destroyed.
UN assessment cited on extent of damage
Jolie cited UN satellite analysis showing that, as of 16 June 2026, 82% of structures in Gaza had been damaged, with roughly two-thirds of those damaged structures assessed as destroyed.
The figures were included in Jolie's Instagram post alongside the satellite imagery.
She also pointed to the humanitarian situation facing Gaza's population as winter approaches, saying 1.98 million people, or 94% of Gaza's population, require shelter assistance and essential items.
“Aid and shelter materials continue to face restrictions and delays,” Jolie said.
She said the satellite imagery could show the physical destruction but could not convey its impact on people living among the ruins.
“The Google Earth images show the physical destruction with extraordinary clarity,” Jolie wrote. “What they 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.”
Call for shelter, medical supplies and reconstruction
Jolie called for humanitarian assistance to reach civilians at the scale required, while urging that hospitals receive medical supplies and that conditions be created for civilians to rebuild their communities.
“People need shelter before winter,” she wrote. “Humanitarian aid needs to reach civilians at the scale required. Hospitals need medical supplies.”
She also called for conditions that would allow civilians to rebuild their homes, schools, hospitals and communities.
“The destruction is visible. The needs are known. What matters now is whether they are met,” Jolie wrote.
Jolie previously visited Rafah crossing
Jolie has previously travelled to Egypt as part of a humanitarian visit. On 2 January 2026, she visited the Rafah Crossing and met aid workers from the Egyptian Red Crescent and other local organisations to discuss efforts to deliver assistance to Gaza, according to a statement from her representatives.
During the visit, Jolie said she had seen warehouses containing aid, including medical supplies, that had been denied entry into Gaza.
“What needs to happen is clear: the ceasefire must hold, and access must be sustained, safe and urgently scaled up so that aid, fuel and critical medical supplies can move quickly and consistently, at the volume required,” she said at the time.
She also called for winter supplies and essential medical equipment to be delivered without delay and thanked volunteers involved in humanitarian relief efforts.
Jolie served as a UN Goodwill Ambassador and later as Special Envoy for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, for more than 20 years from 2001 to 2022. She is also a two-time Oscar winner.
