Palestine Israel: Why Gaza satellite images are blurred on Google Maps
Why Gaza satellite images blur in Google Earth
Why is Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, blurred on Google Maps?
Global New News Desk -
Researchers have once again drawn attention to this issue in the wake of the recent attack on the Palestinian territory of Gaza. Researchers rely heavily on Google Maps to find out exactly where an attack took place in an area, exactly where the attack took place, how much homes were destroyed, and how much damage was done. In addition, they use information that is already available from other open sources and publicly available.
"The fact that we don't get any high-resolution pictures of Israel and the Palestinian territories hinders our work a lot," Samir said. He collected information from open sources and carried out investigations.
Most parts of Israel and the Palestinian Territories are obscured by Google Earth. There are low-resolution images taken by satellite. But many more high-resolution images are available from satellite companies.
It is almost impossible to see even a car on the streets of Gaza in Google Earth imagery.
But compared to that, Pyongyang, the capital city of a country with strict privacy like North Korea, is clearly visible on Google Earth. There are cars on the road, even every person on the road can be seen separately.
On the left is a very low resolution image of Gaza in Google Earth. On the right is a recent picture of a clear good quality of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.
Why these satellite images are so important,
Satellite imagery has become very important in gathering news or information about wars or conflicts in different parts of the world.
However, if the details are very clear in these pictures, it could pose a threat to military security.
In the latest conflict between Israel and Gaza, where the two sides are targeting each other with buildings and installations, bombs and missiles are being fired, investigators want to be sure about those attacks by looking at satellite images. But most of the images of Gaya in Google Earth are of very low resolution and blurry.
Eric Toler, a journalist with Bellingcat, wrote in a tweet, "The most recent images on Google Earth are from 2016 and they're awesome. -Resolution. "
Google says it regularly tries to add new images to densely populated areas. But in the case of Gaza, that was not done at all.
Is high resolution image available?
Until last year, the U.S. government had restrictions on what quality satellite images of Israeli and Palestinian territories could be supplied by U.S. companies on a commercial basis. The United States has imposed sanctions, citing concerns over Israel's security. The law was passed in 1997 in the United States. It is written in a law called the Kyle-Bingaman Amendment (KBA).
"We always want our lowest resolution images to be given. We always want the images to be very clear, not too blurry," Amanon Harari, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's space program, told Reuters last year.
Under a law called the KBA, U.S. satellite imagery providers may only sell low-resolution images in Israel or the Palestinian Territory, which can in no way be less than two meters (six and a half feet) in pixel size. This means that a car-sized object can only be visualized in a picture, not more.
French company Airbus,
It is not uncommon for pictures of military bases to be blurred. But the KBA is the only such law that has kept an entire country in limbo.
The law only applies to Israel, but also to the Palestinian territories.
But many other companies outside the US company can now provide high-quality satellite imagery, such as the French company Airbus. As a result, pressure is mounting on the United States to lift the ban on the sale of high-resolution images.
The KBA law was repealed in July last year, and the US government is now allowing companies in those countries to provide high-resolution images of Israel and the region (each pixel can be up to 40 centimeters smaller, so a human figure can be seen in the image).
Michael Fradley, an archaeologist and lecturer at Oxford University, has successfully campaigned for the lifting of the ban on satellite imagery in Israel and the Palestinian territories. He said they were primarily motivated by scientific research.
"In our project, we wanted to rely on a consistent source of information. So we needed a very high-resolution picture of the occupied Palestinian territory, which we can compare with any other area in that region."
So why is the picture of Gaza so blurry,
The BBC has spoken with Google and Apple, whose mapping apps show satellite imagery.
Apple says it will soon release a new 40-centimeter resolution image on their mapWill update.
Left: Current image of Gaza's Hanadi Tower in Google Earth. Right: High resolution images show the tower destroyed
Google said their images come from a variety of suppliers and "when high-resolution images are available, they consider the opportunity to put them on their maps." But Google says it has no plans to share such images at this time.
Nick Waters, an open-source investigative researcher at the Bellingcat website, wrote on Twitter: "Given the importance of current events, I have no idea why images in this area would be deliberately degraded."
Who actually makes these pictures?
Platforms like Google Earth or Apple Maps rely on the companies that own these satellites for their satellite imagery.
The two biggest companies are Maxer and Planet Labs. The two companies are now providing high-resolution images of Israel and Gaza.
"Following recent changes in US law, images of Israel and Gaza are now being provided at a resolution of 0.4 meters (40 centimeters)," Maxar said in a statement.
And Planet Labs says they now provide images with a resolution of 50 centimeters.
But those who search with information gathered from open-source or open source rely heavily on mapping software that can be used for free. So they don't get high resolution images directly if they want to.
What is known about high resolution images,
Satellite imagery is used for many purposes. Such as deforestation or firefighting. Or leaking human rights violations in different parts of the world.
Rohingya villages
Researchers at Human Rights Watch worked with Planet Labs, a satellite imagery provider, in 2016 to show how Rohingya villages were destroyed by Myanmar's military.
Satellite images show how Rohingya villages were destroyed in Myanmar
Satellite images helped them verify how much more than two hundred Rohingya villages had been destroyed. They did this by comparing 40-centimeter resolution images before and after the military operation.
The Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh claimed that the military had attacked their villages, as evidenced by the images.
Satellite imagery has also been used to monitor what is happening in China's Xinjiang region. The film captures the centers that have been set up there to 're-educate' Uyghur Muslims.
A 2019 satellite image shows a camp for Uyghurs in the Hotan area of China's Xinjiang province.
Where these camps were built, how big they are, and other features of these camps were revealed with these satellite images. Sources, BBC
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