The fragile ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hezbollah last month is holding.
But satellite imagery shows that at least 46 of 54 towns and villages within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “Yellow Line” in southern Lebanon have been heavily damaged or, in some cases, entirely flattened.
Much of the destruction and demolition has taken place in recent weeks.
Bellingcat’s satellite imagery analysis examined towns and villages identified on OpenStreetMap, a community-driven map database. Medium resolution PlanetScope satellite imagery covering each of the locations was provided by Planet Labs, a US company that recently restricted some of its imagery in the Middle East.
Bellingcat is sharing the annotated PlanetScope imagery for the dates of March 2 and May 8, 2026, showing the scale of damage that has occurred during roughly the first two months of the US-Israeli war against Iran.
The towns and villages detailed in the map are colour coded. Red shows locations that have suffered varying degrees of damage or destruction, while yellow shows locations that were damaged prior to the US-Israeli war with Iran. White shows locations that have not been significantly damaged at time of publication.
Scroll and zoom to see damage throughout southern Lebanon in each of the date tabs. The first image is from March 2, 2026, shortly after the US and Israel attacked Iran. The second image is from May 8, 2026, more than two months after the start of the war and amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. PlanetScope imagery via Planet Labs PBC.
Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, is reported to have stated that “all homes in Lebanese villages near the border will be destroyed — in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza”. The aim, Katz said, is to “remove, once and for all, the threats near the border”. Israel has adopted similar methods of flattening buildings and homes close to Israel’s border in Gaza.
The large-scale destruction in southern Lebanon has been reported by multiple outlets including the BBC, CNN, SkyNews and The New York Times. These reports have shared images from several towns and villages, but Bellingcat is publishing satellite imagery for the entirety of southern Lebanon. The changes between the two dates show the scale and pace of destruction.
Within the Yellow Line — the area occupied by the IDF since a ceasefire was agreed between Hezbollah and Israel on April 16 — some towns were reported already destroyed or heavily damaged during the 2024 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. Some — like the coastal border town of Naqoura or the southeastern border town of Kfar Kila — have now been largely demolished. This is visible in both the medium-resolution PlanetScope imagery, and in high-resolution imagery obtained from Airbus by the BBC.
Everything south of Lebanon’s Litani and Zahrani Rivers has been under evacuation orders issued by the IDF since early March, with regular updates warning residents to leave ahead of airstrikes.
Much of the destruction within the “Yellow Line” appears to be from either controlled demolitions using explosives or construction vehicles. The IDF has shared numerous videos showing large-scale demolitions conducted in the towns and villages in southern Lebanon, while videos shared elsewhere on social media show the aftermath — large parts of towns like Beit Lif or Kheim reduced to rubble.
One particularly large explosion took place in the small village of Qantara, where the IDF says it found two large tunnel systems built by Hezbollah.
The tunnels were detonated with 450 tonnes of explosives, leaving large parts of the village obliterated. Another video released by the IDF showed some of the few remaining buildings in the nearby village of Aadashit being demolished with explosives. The IDF claimed the buildings were “Hezbollah infrastructure”.
Before and after imagery from Planet Labs shows the villages of Qantara and Aadshit in southern Lebanon on March 2 and April 30, 2026. The April imagery shows the aftermath of two large demolitions conducted by the IDF. Large parts of both villages have also been demolished. The UNP 7-1 label details the position of a UN peacekeepers facility.
Bellingcat contacted the IDF for comment on the details in this story but did not receive a response before publication.
A full size version of the map can be found here.
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The post Satellite Imagery Shows Ongoing Demolitions Across Southern Lebanon appeared first on bellingcat.
Access to open source visuals of the current Iran conflict, which has spread to many parts of the Middle East, continues to be sporadic. Videos and photos from within Iran trickle out on social media as the Iranian internet blackout hinders the flow of digital communication.
In past conflicts, satellite imagery has provided a vital overview of potential damage to both military and civilian infrastructure, especially when there are digital black spots or obstacles to on-the-ground reporting. But imagery from commercial providers is becoming increasingly restricted, leaving even those who have access to the most expensive imagery in the dark.
Shortly after the war in Gaza began in 2023, Bellingcat introduced a free tool authored by University College London lecturer and Bellingcat contributor, Ollie Ballinger, that was able to estimate the number of damaged buildings in a given area. This helped monitor and map the scale of destruction across the territory as Israel’s military operation progressed.
Bellingcat is now introducing an updated version of the open source tool — called the Iran Conflict Damage Proxy Map — focused on destruction in Iran and the wider Gulf region.
It can be accessed here.
The tool works by conducting a statistical test on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery captured by the Sentinel-1 satellite which is part of the Copernicus mission developed and operated by the European Space Agency. SAR sends pulses of microwaves at the earth’s surface and uses their echo to capture textural information about what it detects.
The SAR data for the geographic area covered by the tool is put through the Pixel-Wise T-Test (PWTT) damage detection algorithm, which was also developed by Ollie Ballinger. It takes a reference period of one year’s worth of SAR imagery before the onset of the war and calculates a “normal” range within which 99% of the observations fall. It then conducts the same process for imagery in an inference period following the onset of the war, and compares it to the reference period. The core idea is that if a building has become damaged since the beginning of the war, then the “echo” (called backscatter) from that pixel will be consistently outside of the normal range of values for that particular area. Investigators can then further probe potential damage around this highlighted area.
The plot below shows how the process was applied to Gaza and several Syrian, Iraqi and Ukrainian cities. The bars represent the weekly total number of clashes in each place, sourced from the Armed Conflict Location Event (ACLED) dataset. The pre-war reference periods are shaded in blue, spanning one year before the onset of each conflict. The one month inference periods after the respective conflicts began are shaded in orange. The blue and orange areas are what the tool compares.
The plot below shows an area with a number of warehouses in Tehran’s southwest. Some of the buildings show clear damage in optical Sentinel-2 imagery (something that has to be accessed outside of the tool via the Copernicus Browser).
Clicking on the map within the tool generates a chart displaying that pixel’s historical backscatter; the red dotted lines denote a range within which 99% of the pre-war backscatter values fall. In this example, we can see that from March 14 onwards, the backscatter values over this warehouse begin to consistently fall outside of their historical normal range. This could signal that damage has been detected in the area.
Two important aspects of this workflow are that it utilises free and fully open access satellite data, as opposed to commercial satellite services; the second is that it overcomes some key limitations of AI in this domain, the most serious of which is called overfitting. This is where a model trained in one area is deployed in a new unseen area, and fails to generalise. Because we’re only ever comparing each pixel against its own historical baseline, we don’t run into that problem.
The PWTT has been published in a scientific journal after two years of review. Its accuracy was assessed using an original dataset of over two million building footprints labeled by the United Nations, spanning 30 cities across Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, and Iraq. Despite being simple and lightweight, the algorithm has been recorded achieving building-level accuracy statistics (AUC=0.87 in the full sample) rivaling state of the art methods that use deep learning and high resolution imagery. The plot below compares building-level predictions from the PWTT against the UN damage annotations in Hostomel, Ukraine. True positives (PWTT and United Nations agree on damage) are shown in red, true negatives are shown in green, false positives in orange, and false negatives in purple. The graphic shows the accuracy of the tool, while also emphasising that further checks on what it highlights should be conducted to draw full conclusions.
It is important to note that just because the tool may show a high probability of a building or buildings being damaged or destroyed, that doesn’t make it definite.
It is best to check with any other available imagery — either open source photos and videos that’ve been geolocated by a group such as Geoconfirmed or Sentinel-2 as well as other commercial satellite imagery if it’s up-to-date for the area. At time of publication, Sentinel-2 satellite imagery still offers coverage over the area that the tool focuses on. Other commercial satellite imagery providers have limited their coverage.
What the tool excels at is highlighting and narrowing down areas so that further corroboration or further confirmation can be sought.
Using the Iran Conflict Damage Proxy Map, we can spot some of the larger areas of potential damage or destruction that have occurred since the Iran war started.
Starting from a zoomed-out view of Tehran, there are a few spots that appear with large clusters of high damage probability. Cross-referencing these locations with open source map data from platforms like OpenStreetMap or Wikimapia, we can start finding sites that would make for likely targets – such as military sites.
One example of a potentially damaged site visible in the tool is the Valiasr Barracks in central Tehran, which was struck in the first week of the war. By going to the Copernicus Browser and reviewing the area with optical Sentinel-2 imagery, we can see clear indications of damage at the barracks.
IRGC Valiasr Barracks in Tehran:
A large Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound near Isfahan is another example of military infrastructure that is readily visible in both the Iran Conflict Damage Proxy Map as well as Sentinel-2 imagery.
IRGC Ashura Garrison in Isfahan:
Air bases have also been a frequent target for U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran. The Fath Air Base just outside of Tehran, near the city of Karaj, shows the signature of potential damage when using the tool. Checking Sentinel-2 imagery shows damage to multiple large buildings on the northern side of the base.
Fath Air Base in Karaj:
The U.S. has stated that destroying Iran’s “defense industrial base” is also a goal, which makes large areas like the Khojir missile production complex east of Tehran a good location to search with this tool. The tool suggests large clusters of damage on both the eastern and western sides of the complex — near areas where solid propellant is reportedly produced and where other fuel components are reportedly made.
Khojir Missile Production Complex outside of Tehran:
While useful for providing a sense of damaged areas in Iran, the Iran Conflict Damage Proxy Map can also be used to see damage outside of Iran, particularly at sites in the region which Iran has been targeting with drones and missiles.
In the below example at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which hosts U.S. Central Command’s Combined Air Operations Center, there is a notable indication of damage over a warehouse-like building at 25.115647, 51.333125. Checking the same location in Sentinel-2 imagery shows that there does appear to be damage at that warehouse — represented by a large blackened area on the white roof. According to Qatar’s Ministry of Defense, at least one Iranian ballistic missile struck the base in early March.
Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar:
Civilian sites struck by Iranian drones or missiles are also visible in the tool — though the damage has to be fairly large in order to be picked up. Something like damage to the sides of high rise buildings from an Iranian drone attack doesn’t readily appear in the tool. Sites that do appear are places like oil refineries, such as a fuel tank at Fujairah port in the United Arab Emirates.
Fuel tanks at Fujairah Port, UAE:
It’s important to keep in mind that the data for the Iran Conflict Damage Proxy Map is updated approximately one or two times per week as new satellite data is collected by the Sentinel-1 satellite, so it’s not meant to be a representation of real-time damage to buildings.
Still, it can be useful for researchers to quickly gain an overview of damage throughout Iran and the Gulf where suspected strikes may have taken place and when there is no other open source information available.
You can access the Iran Conflict Damage Proxy Map here.
Similar tools using the same methodology to assess damage in Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion and Turkey following the 2023 earthquake can be found here. The Gaza Damage Proxy Map can be found here.
Bellingcat’s Logan Williams contributed to this report.
This article was updated on April 7, 2026, to note that Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 are part of the Copernicus mission developed and operated by the European Space Agency.
Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here, Instagram here, Reddit here and YouTube here.
The post When Satellite Imagery Goes Dark: New Tool Shows Damage in Iran and the Gulf appeared first on bellingcat.
A landmark jury verdict has found Meta and YouTube negligent in a social media addiction case, raising major questions about platform accountability and legal protections under Section 230. This episode covers the details of the case, why the ruling is significant, and what it could mean for the future of social media, privacy, and cybersecurity. […]
The post Meta & YouTube Found Negligent: A Turning Point for Big Tech? appeared first on Shared Security Podcast.
The post Meta & YouTube Found Negligent: A Turning Point for Big Tech? appeared first on Security Boulevard.
Bellingcat has identified several high-profile incidents where authorities in the United Arab Emirates have downplayed damage, mischaracterised interceptions and in some instances not acknowledged successful Iranian drone strikes on the country.
A review of official statements shows that the public account does not always align with what can be observed through open sources. This comes as the UAE faces sustained aerial attacks on civilian and economic infrastructure, challenging its image as a secure global hub for business and tourism. Hours after the United States and Israel launched coordinated attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, the Islamic Republic responded by launching an attack against US-allies in the region including the UAE.
In the wake of the attacks, the UAE’s attorney general warned that publication of images or videos of strikes was illegal. People were also encouraged to report anyone sharing photos or videos of the strikes to authorities.
The country’s attorney general has ordered the arrest of 35 people and said they would face an expedited trial for “publishing video clips on social media platforms containing misleading, fabricated content and content that harmed defence measures and glorified acts of military aggression against UAE.” Separately police in Abu Dhabi reported they had arrested just over 100 people on suspicion of filming incidents related to Iran’s attacks on the UAE and sharing misleading information online.
Bellingcat contacted the Dubai Media Office, the Fujairah Media Office as well as the UAE’s Ministry of Defence to understand how statements are put out and how distinctions are made between successful drone strikes and damage caused by debris. We did not receive a response by the time of publication.
During the first days of the conflict several videos were posted on social media, primarily on X, TikTok and Telegram showing footage of Iranian attacks and interceptions across the UAE.
Around the same time the Dubai Media Office, the X account of the Government of Dubai’s press office, warned followers that legal action would be taken against those sharing “unverified material”.
The X account of the Dubai Media Office has more than 2.3 million followers making it one of the largest state-run accounts in the country.
“The public and media are urged to rely solely on official sources for accurate information and refrain from sharing unverified material,” the account posted.
Dubai Police issued similar warnings on social media, stating that sharing content that contradicts official announcements could lead to imprisonment of at least two years and fines of no less than 200,000 dirhams (approximately $55,000).
Despite authorities urging the public to rely on official sources only, Bellingcat found that some of the videos posted online as well as satellite imagery from the region contradicts a number of official accounts of high-profile attacks. For this piece we have only included links to videos that have already been widely published in mainstream news outlets, posted by professional journalists, or have been widely viewed on social media.
On March 3, a video filmed from a vessel appears to show a drone striking the port of Fujairah, one of the UAE’s most strategically important energy hubs. The port handles roughly 1.7 million barrels of oil per day and is among the world’s largest.
The drone appears to approach its target intact, with no visible sign of interception, Sam Lair, a researcher at James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told Bellingcat.
Moments after it descends behind storage tanks, an explosion is heard and a large plume of smoke rises from the site.
On the same day, the Fujairah Media Office stated that a fire resulted from debris following a successful interception, adding that the fire had been brought under control. Satellite images captured on March 4 and 5 show thick black smoke rising from the site. NASA FIRMS data also detected fires on March 3, March 4 and March 5. By March 7, satellite imagery shows at least three storage tanks fully destroyed (25.184565, 56.345481).
Detained in Dubai, a group that provides legal advice to people detained in the UAE, said that a Vietnamese national who filmed the strike on Fujairah port had been detained by authorities after posting the footage online.
Authorities made a similar report on March 1, stating that a fire at one of the berths of Jebel Ali Port was caused by debris from an aerial interception. Satellite imagery from the same day shows fires at two separate locations – approximately 3 km apart – within the port. One appears to be a central facility associated with fuel handling operations, connected via pipelines to surrounding storage tanks (25.00704, 55.07499). The other is a large structure (24.97953, 55.05204) in the military area of the port, which is one of the US Navy’s busiest ports in the Middle East. The New York Times previously identified an Iranian strike as the cause of the fire at the site.
Damage at Dubai’s Burj Al Arab Hotel was attributed by the Dubai Media Office to “shrapnel” from an intercepted drone and described as a “limited” fire. However, footage shows the fire extended to approximately 30 metres in height, covering approximately eight floors of the building, suggesting a far more significant incident than officially described.
Lair told Bellingcat that the damage appeared more consistent with a direct impact. He added that if the damage had resulted from an interception it would have occurred irresponsibly close to the building.
On Feb. 28, the Fairmont hotel in Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah area was struck by a drone, as shown in footage verified by Bellingcat.
However the Dubai Media office did not confirm a strike took place, instead they stated only that an “incident occurred in a building in the Palm Jumeirah area,” and urged the public not to share footage.
One video of the fire was shared by a Dubai-based Bloomberg journalist. In the replies to the journalist’s post, multiple users tagged the Dubai Police, a pattern seen across posts documenting the strikes, in an apparent effort to flag violations of the cyber-crime laws to authorities.
The aftermath of the strike was also captured by a content-creator who has since left the UAE.
Radha Stirling, founder of Detained in Dubai, told Bellingcat at least five people have been confirmed by the British embassy to have been charged and detained under the UAE’s cybercrime law in connection with documenting this strike. According to Stirling, authorities have sought access to individuals’ phones following incidents to determine whether they filmed or shared footage.
“Even just taking a photo is illegal, it’s illegal to share content that the government deems negative, even in a private message,” Stirling said.
On March 7, the Dubai Media Office announced the temporary suspension of operations at Dubai International Airport, stating only that a situation was being handled under safety protocols.
Footage that emerged online around the same time, and was verified by Bellingcat, shows a drone strike next to an airport terminal building (25.24165, 55.37498).
Stirling told Bellingcat that she has been in contact with a cabin crew member who was detained after sending an image to colleagues of Dubai airport after an explosion.
On March 1, a drone struck a residential apartment on the 19th floor of the Warda complex in Dubai (25.004320, 55.293164). Two videos filmed from different angles show the drone hitting the building directly, with no visible sign of interception. In one clip, filmed inside the apartment, a British resident says: “We’ve just been hit by a drone… I didn’t even finish my cup of tea.”
The footage shows relatively limited damage and no explosion, indicating the drone did not detonate. However, the incident appears to show a direct hit by an Iranian drone.
In contrast, statements published the same day by the Dubai Media Office describe air defence activity and attribute sounds heard across the emirate to successful interception operations. Bellingcat was unable to find any acknowledgement of a direct hit in UAE media.
These cases point to a gap between official accounts and observable evidence, raising questions about how incidents are being presented to the public.
At the same time, pro-government messaging has proliferated online. A number of near-identical videos posted by influencers promoting the UAE’s safety and leadership appeared, often using the format: “You live in Dubai, aren’t you scared?” followed by images of UAE leaders and the response: “No, because I know who protects us.”
Analysis by the BBC found that some of these videos were uploaded within seconds of each other, suggesting coordinated activity.
Stirling told Bellingcat that influencers in the UAE, who require licences to operate, are often paid to promote official narratives. “They are seen as an asset,” she said, describing them as “almost an extension of the government.”
As of April 1, UAE media reported that a total of 12 people had been killed and 190 injured by strikes since the beginning of the war.
“People are dying. It’s not as safe as the government is reporting. It’s not as safe as influencers are reporting. It’s like a dream narrative that you wish was true.” Stirling said.
Bellingcat also identified a number of incidents in which authorities reported deaths or injuries caused by “debris” following “successful interceptions”. In these cases, however, we were unable to identify supporting photo, video, or other independently verifiable evidence to corroborate the official account.
Notably, fewer videos of such incidents appear to have emerged online in recent weeks, likely as public awareness of detentions under the cyber-criminality law has increased.
Jonathan Dagher, head of the Middle East desk at Reporters Without Borders told Bellingcat that the UAE government was using the Iran war to further restrict independent reporting in the country.
“When the conflict began, the government stepped up this repression, explicitly prohibiting the public (including journalists) from publishing photos or information related to the strikes, and encouraging the public to report on such incidents.”
He added that legitimate concerns about national security should not infringe on the public’s right to information.
“Broad and loosely worded bans on covering events, in the name of security, violate this right and expose journalists to arrest and violence.”
Bellingcat contacted the Dubai Media Office, the Fujairah Media Office as well as the UAE’s Ministry of Defence to understand how statements are put out and how distinctions are made between successful drone strikes and damage caused by debris. We did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Lana Nusseibeh, a representative of the UAE’s Foreign Ministry previously told the BBC:
“In order for everyone to feel safe it’s important at this time that the information is credible and the sources are reliable. That is the basis of the legislation that has come into play in this State, which is obviously a tense time.”
She added that her advice for residents, citizens, tourists and journalists in the UAE was to: “Follow the guidelines. The guidelines are there for your safety and for your protection.”
Merel Zoet contributed to this report.
Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here, Instagram here, Reddit here and YouTube here.
The post The War You’re Not Allowed to See: How the UAE Rewrites the Story of Iranian Strikes appeared first on bellingcat.
Bellingcat has geolocated and verified two new videos showing the deadly strikes that hit an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound as well as an adjacent school in the city of Minab in late February.
The new videos were released by Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and show multiple missiles hitting the complex.
One of the new videos shows the area around the school being struck while the other shows a nearby IRGC clinic and two buildings within the IRGC facility being hit by Tomahawk missiles.
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Visual and solar analysis of the videos appears to show there was a time gap between when each was filmed, suggesting that there were at least two waves of strikes carried out in the area.
Applying the same solar analysis techniques to social media footage that showed the school after it had been hit indicates the school was impacted during the first wave of strikes.
Previous investigations by Bellingcat and other news organisations showed a US Tomahawk missile struck the IRGC facility on Feb. 28.
The US is the only party to the conflict to possess Tomahawk missiles.
Media reports, including from the New York Times and Reuters, have since detailed that a preliminary investigation by the US military concluded it was likely a US strike that hit the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school.
According to Iranian media, at least 175 people were killed in the attack, including children.
The first video (video one) is filmed from just over 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) away from the IRGC base and shows at least 10 missiles impacting the area over a period of 50 seconds.
The first explosion is visible five seconds into the video. The area around where the school was located is struck at 14 seconds. This is the fourth explosion visible in the footage.
Another structure that was damaged in the strikes is situated approximately 100 metres away from the school in the same general area. It was therefore not possible to determine which exact structure was hit from this footage alone.
The second new video (video two) was filmed approximately two kilometres southeast of the school, and is of a higher quality than video one. This video shows three Tomahawk missiles in the moments before impact.
Video two includes annotations and pauses when each Tomahawk appears on screen.
A frame-by-frame analysis also shows what appear to be two minor visual glitches where some frames are transposed and annotations were added, highlighting when missiles can be seen.
The second impact seen in video two is the same as seen in footage released by Iranian media in early March, and previously reported on by Bellingcat and others, only from a different perspective.
Video two also only shows the southern part of the base, with its northern section not visible. The school is located on the northern edge of the base and is therefore not visible in video two.
Bellingcat asked the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs why only part of the strike, as seen in video one, was released and if there was a longer version that may show further impacts. We did not receive a response before publication.
Bellingcat also asked the US Department of Defense whether it had any further information on the strike since its reported preliminary findings. It referred us to CENTCOM, which said: “We have nothing for you on this. The investigation is still ongoing.”
Bellingcat was able to geolocate and verify video one by tracing sightlines on satellite imagery to determine the camera’s location and identify objects such as buildings, trees and a water tower within the IRGC facility.
According to this analysis, video one was most likely filmed from an electric substation southeast of the school.
Once all key elements were identified and geolocated, we analysed each explosion that can be seen in the footage.
Fourteen seconds into video one, the fourth impact appears to hit the area immediately around the school, which was approximately 200 meters behind a water tower.
While the school was walled off and outside the IRGC facility, the water tower and another building (situated between the school and the water tower) are located within it.
Due to the relatively small distance between the school and the other IRGC building (roughly 100m), it was not possible to determine what structure was hit at the moment of the strike visible in video one.
More information, such as obtaining the entire strike video sequence, would be needed to fully determine which structure was hit in this footage. However, social media footage captured at the scene does suggest that the school was hit around this time.
For video two, we stitched together a rough panorama of what could be seen in the footage.
This made it possible to match up multiple buildings visible southeast of the IRGC base and school, while also building rough sightlines to show which part of the base was being filmed.
Bellingcat was able to narrow down the areas hit by the three missiles seen in video two by comparing it with the point of view of a short video released in early March, showing a Tomahawk hitting the complex, as well as with what could be seen in video one. Post-strike satellite imagery also helped confirm the buildings that were hit in the footage.
We were thus able to determine that video two shows an IRGC clinic and two buildings within the IRGC compound being hit.
The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has claimed that two waves of strikes occurred.
Initial analysis did suggest that video one and two appeared to be filmed at different times as the strikes visible in each clip cannot be synced up.
Solar data also gives clues as to the time each was taken, suggesting that there was a time gap of at least an hour between the strikes seen in the two videos.
According to the New York Times, the strikes were first reported on social media just after 11:30 am.
Solar data, derived by the direction of shadows visible in video one and simulated via the SunCalc platform, appears to indicate it was filmed between 10:30 and 11:30am.
Analysing the shadows seen in the earlier March video using the same method, appears to show that it was filmed between 13:30 and 14:30.
This would seem to indicate that video two and the earlier March video were likely filmed after video one.
Solar data from a video posted to Telegram showing the smouldering school, and damage to the nearby IRGC building about 100m away, shows that it was recorded around the time of the first video.
This, therefore, appears to confirm that the school was impacted before the wave of attacks seen in video two.
Iranian media previously released images of munition remnants they claim they recovered from the school.
Bellingcat was not able to verify where the remnants were originally found, but was able to identify them as Tomahawk missile remnants. The New York Times also confirmed this identification by matching the contract number on a remnant to a contract for the Tomahawk missile.
Bellingcat’s Carlos Gonzales, Jake Godin and Trevor Ball contributed research to this article.
Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Patreon channel here. Subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here, Instagram here, Reddit here and YouTube here.
The post Two Waves of Bombing: New Videos Reveal Further Details About Iran School Strike appeared first on bellingcat.
Akamai researchers saw a 245% spike in cyberattacks in the first two weeks after the start of the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran as Iranian nation-state groups and independent hacktivists launch increasingly decentralized and destructive cyberattacks, which are expected to increase as long as the kinetic battle continues.
The post Cyberattacks Spike 245% in the Two Weeks After the Start of War With Iran appeared first on Security Boulevard.
Last month, in the dead of a cold Autumn night, residents in the Ukrainian town of Balakliia were woken by the sound of two massive explosions.
Social media footage showed apartments ablaze, balconies obliterated and a deep crater smouldering in a parking lot.
Three people were killed and 13 injured in the November 17 attack, Ukraine’s State Emergency Services (SES) said. Four of those injured were children, the SES added. A kindergarten, situated just over a hundred metres from one of the impact sites, was also reported to have suffered damage.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, schools, educational facilities and spaces used by children have repeatedly been damaged in strikes or closed because of them.
According to the United Nation’s agency for children, UNICEF, many schools remain closed or continue to be disrupted by air raid alarms. Almost one million children have also been forced to study online, UNICEF states.
Balakliia lies in Kharkiv Oblast in the north east of Ukraine. Another Russian strike carried out there earlier in November caused damage near the town’s main square. Located just over 100 metres away was a high school and not far from that a local theatre school. While neither of those facilities appeared to be directly damaged, many other educational institutions have not been so lucky.
A Ukrainian government website (saveschools.in.ua) has been tracking the number of kindergartens, high schools, colleges and universities that have been damaged and destroyed across the country.
At time of publication 3,676 educational facilities have been damaged nationwide and 394 destroyed, according to saveschools.in.ua.
These trends are reflected in social media data collected by Bellingcat.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Bellingcat has been gathering and verifying social media footage showing incidents of civilian harm.
More than 2,500 incidents have been identified during this period, including attacks on hospitals, power stations, residential buildings and cultural sites. The full dataset is public and can be found here. But this is likely just a fraction of the damage caused across Ukraine as the data only captures incidents recorded and published on social media channels that have been verified.
Amongst this dataset are more than 200 cases of educational facilities that have been damaged or destroyed.
In September this year, for example, social media footage captured the moment a Russian drone hit an administrative building at Kharkiv’s National University of Pharmacy.
As far back as July 2022, a school for the visually impaired in eastern Kharkiv was hit by Russian rockets, leaving windows smashed and classrooms burned out.
Just a few months before that, footage posted online appeared to show the remains of a missile that hit a school in the town of Merefa, situated around 30 kilometres to the southeast of Kharkiv.
More educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Kharkiv Oblast than in any other territory currently held by Ukraine, according to Bellingcat’s dataset and saveschools.in.ua statistics.
In Kharkiv city and its surrounding areas, Bellingcat found and archived footage of at least 26 schools, kindergartens, colleges or universities that have been damaged and destroyed since Russia’s full-scale invasion. A further 36 strikes that impacted areas around educational facilities in Kharkiv but did not directly hit them were also verified and archived by Bellingcat.
Sustained attacks on educational facilities as well as widespread disruption to studies caused by the war are having a lasting impact on Ukraine’s young people, children’s rights groups say.
A report from Save the Children earlier this year detailed how attacks on educational facilities had doubled in Ukraine over the course of 2024. The same report found that parents were scared to send their children to school and that many children were being forced to resort to online learning at home.
A 2024 report from UNICEF has found Ukrainian children are falling behind children in other countries across all/multiple subjects including reading, maths and science.
In Balakliia, journalists from Agence France-Presse (AFP) bureaus in Paris and Kharkiv spoke to teenage student Bohdan Levchykov who said he studies at home and seldom leaves the house. Levchykov also spoke about the impact of losing his father in the early months of the war.
About an hour’s drive to the northwest, in the town of Khorocheve, a psychologist with the non-profit Voices of Children , Maryna Dudbyk, told AFP that the ongoing war means that everyone is living under stress.
“This has a huge impact on children’s emotional state,” she said.
“We diagnose a lot of fear and anxiety among children. Adolescents suffer from self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and the loss of loved ones.”
Other facilities, beyond schools, regularly enjoyed by children have also been impacted by the war, compounding the challenges young people face.
Bellingcat’s dataset found 28 incidents where swimming pools, parks, football pitches, bowling alleys or museums had been impacted in and around Kharkiv. A further 16 incidents were recorded in areas surrounding such facilities. The below interactive shows (in red) incidents where educational or recreational facilities used by young people have been impacted by Russian strikes in and around Kharkiv. The other markers in the map (in purple) detail additional civilian harm incidents Bellingcat has been able to verify. A wider dataset of showing incidents that have impacted areas surrounding educational and recreational facilities can be found here.
One video from March this year showed young men playing football scrambling for cover as a drone can be heard overhead before an explosion can be seen.
Although Ukraine’s policymakers are facing many challenges as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches its fifth year, the mental health of the country’s youth is on their minds.
Oksana Zbitnieva, head of the Interministerial Coordination Center for Mental Health told AFP that “130,000 frontline health professionals—nurses, pediatricians, family doctors—have received certified training as part of a WHO mental health program.”
Meanwhile, more than 300 “resilience centres” welcome children and parents across the country, with three hundred more expected to be built next year, according to Ukrainian Social Affairs Minister Denys Uliutine.
New concepts are also being tested and tried.
In Kharkiv, underground schools – located beneath the streets of the city – are being set up to help bring children back into the classroom.
City authorities told AFP there would be 10 underground schools operational by the end of 2025.
At a school visited by AFP, a rotating system allows it to continue offering children in-person education, even if only for a limited time, each week. The school enables every child to attend half a day of their class in-person each week. When the child returns home they continue their education via remote classes, while another student comes into school for their half day spot. This allows the school to accommodate 1,400 children, including on weekends.
Yet recent events in Kharkiv highlight that normal life is far from returning, despite recent peace efforts.
At the end of October, a kindergarten in the west of the city was struck by a Russian drone.
Footage from the scene showed panicked parents and disoriented children being carried from away by emergency workers as smoke billowed from the kindergarten.
Despite the scale of the destruction visible in social media footage, only one person (an adult male) was reported to have died during this strike.
For many youngsters in Ukraine, there may be no reclaiming the childhood that war has taken from them.
But Bohdan Levchykov in Balakliia believes there are still things to look forward to.
He told AFP about the friends he had made online – including one named Lana who lives more than 400km away in the city of Dnipro- and his hopes of meeting them in real life one day.
“I’ve talked about it with my mother,” he told AFP.
“Maybe our parents can arrange something for us to meet,” he said hopefully.
Eoghan Macguire, Youri van der Weide and Logan Williams contributed to this report for Bellingcat as did Stéphanie Ladel and Olivia Gresham from Bellingcat’s Volunteer Community.
Boris Bachorz reported and conducted interviews for AFP with the help of Natalia Yermak.
A version of this story can be found on the website of the Central European Digital Media Observatory (CEDMO) website.
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