Active InSAR monitoring of building damage in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas War

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14730v1
• Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2025 17:12:22 GMT
• Title: Active InSAR monitoring of building damage in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas War
• Authors: Corey Scher, Jamon Van Den Hoek,
• Abstract summary: Aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip beginning October 7, 2023 is one of the most intense bombing campaigns of the twenty-first century.<n>This study uses synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data to track weekly damage trends over the first year of the 2023- Israel-Hamas War.<n>We detect 92.5% of damage labels in reference data from the United Nations with a negligible (1.2%) false positive rate.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Abstract: Aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip beginning October 7, 2023 is one of the most intense bombing campaigns of the twenty-first century, driving widespread urban damage. Characterizing damage over a geographically dynamic and protracted armed conflict requires active monitoring. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has precedence for mapping disaster-induced damage with bi-temporal methods but applications to active monitoring during sustained crises are limited. Using interferometric SAR data from Sentinel-1, we apply a long temporal-arc coherent change detection (LT-CCD) approach to track weekly damage trends over the first year of the 2023- Israel-Hamas War. We detect 92.5% of damage labels in reference data from the United Nations with a negligible (1.2%) false positive rate. The temporal fidelity of our approach reveals rapidly increasing damage during the first three months of the war focused in northern Gaza, a notable pause in damage during a temporary ceasefire, and surges of new damage as conflict hot-spots shift from north to south. Three-fifths (191,263) of all buildings are damaged or destroyed by the end of the study. With massive need for timely data on damage in armed conflict zones, our low-cost and low-latency approach enables rapid uptake of damage information at humanitarian and journalistic organizations.

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