Preliminary Damage Detection in Gaza Using Sentinel-2

Tyler Medina, 2024, Environmental Science, Spatial Studies Minor, Public Policy Minor

The Israel-Hamas war started in October of 2023, and is ongoing today in and around the Gaza strip territory. The Israeli military is carrying out a large-scale ground invasion and aerial bombing campaign and it has been reported that the war resulted in extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure in Gaza. This project aims at detecting potential changes  from war damage using satellite imagery data before and after the war started. In this study, Sentinel-2 imagery from March of 2023 and of 2024 were compared to detect changes between the two datasets.  The results can help assess the ability of medium resolution satellite data to effectively detect areas of damage caused in a war.

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