World
See the Rapid Expansion of Tent Camps in Southern Gaza
Recent satellite imagery shows an influx of displaced Palestinians into Rafah, the Gaza Strip’s southernmost region, where about 1.25 million people are now living in squalid, cramped conditions.
This increase is visible in commercially available satellite imagery from Planet Labs that was taken over the past two months. It reveals the scale of the dire humanitarian crisis in Rafah that has worsened as the Israeli offensive against Hamas has intensified in central and southern Gaza.
Early in the war, official shelters, like this U.N. logistics base, became overcrowded, and tents were set up in their immediate area.
A satellite image from Nov. 10 showing a portion of western Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Five areas are highlighted showing where tents are visible. Among them are schools used as shelters and a U.N. logistics base. By early December, large numbers of tents began popping up around shelters.
A satellite image from Dec. 3 showing the same area as the first image. There has been an expansion to the area of visible tents, mostly limited to the areas around the schools and the logistics base.
The number of tents and makeshift structures sharply increased across this area of Rafah after Israel’s repeated orders to evacuate large portions of central and southern Gaza in December. A satellite image from Dec. 31 showing the same area as the first image. Tents now fill a majority of the image.
As of Sunday, even more tents had appeared, filling up even more available space.
A satellite image from Jan. 14 showing the same area as the first image. The number and extent of tents has visibility increased from the December imagery.
Source: Satellite images by Planet Labs
The part of northwest Rafah in the image above has become the primary area for new impromptu encampments to house displaced Gazans. Yet tents are also visible in areas across Rafah’s approximately 25 square miles.
With little space available to shelter indoors, “Rafah has become a city covered with plastic sheeting,” said Juliette Touma, the director of communications for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
A tent camp in Rafah.
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
The arrival of displaced people in Rafah in recent weeks has led to the spread of tent camps farther away from established shelters. These areas come with challenges like a lack of electricity, clean water, bathrooms and other basics, as well as less access to the limited aid trickling into Rafah, said Shaina Low, a communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“Because these are informal camps without official leadership or representation, aid agencies have no one to coordinate distribution with, forcing those seeking assistance to go to established sites to receive aid,” Ms. Low said.
While aid groups like the Norwegian Refugee Council have provided some displaced people with tents, many people have been forced to build their own. Thousands more have struggled without any kind of shelter.
“Streets and open spaces are now filled with homemade structures and tents,” Ms. Low said. “Makeshift shelters constructed from salvaged materials are unable to withstand increasingly cold, wet and windy winter weather.”
Satellite imagery from Planet Labs taken on Sunday shows the rapid expansion of one of these tent camps in an open area along the border between Gaza and Egypt that was empty in early December.
Source: Satellite images by Planet Labs
Tent camps expand near Egypt’s border
Those staying in official shelters are considered somewhat safer from Israeli airstrikes than people living in makeshift tent camps. Shelters for displaced people are protected under humanitarian law, according to U.N. officials. That said, at least 330 displaced people staying in U.N. shelters across the Gaza Strip have been killed since the war began on Oct. 7, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Since Dec. 1, the Israeli military has ordered civilians to evacuate from large swaths of the central and southern regions of Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, areas that were sheltering more than 550,000 internally displaced people and were home to over one million people before the war, according to the United Nations.
Many of these displaced people have fled to Rafah. By mid-December, Rafah was already estimated to be sheltering over a million people and had become Gaza’s most densely populated area, with a roughly four-fold increase in population compared with before the war. With at least 100,000 additional people having poured in, the region is struggling to meet the massive humanitarian need.
“Rafah is one of the poorest parts of Gaza,” Ms. Touma said. “The infrastructure is not at all suitable to absorb this huge influx.”
A tent camp in Rafah near the Gaza-Egypt border.
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
Displaced people setting up a tent near the border. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
The number of people registered at shelters in Rafah was 978,000 as of Jan. 14, up from 705,000 on Dec. 25 and 463,000 on Dec. 1, according to U.N. data. Hundreds of thousands of additional people are also estimated to be staying in the region unregistered with the shelter system.
Source: U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs via HDX Notes: Numbers include people registered at government and U.N. shelters. Estimates for Deir al Balah are not updated daily.
Estimated number of displaced people registered at shelters in each region
Many within Gaza have been displaced multiple times since the onset of Israel’s bombing campaign and ground invasion in response to Hamas’s attack in Israel in October. Relief officials say that repeated displacements make it difficult to accurately track the movement of people over time.
With a vast majority of Gaza’s population displaced, aid groups and the U.N. have been struggling to keep up with the staggering demand for help in Rafah and across the Gaza Strip. Even when aid is available, relief officials say that its delivery has been impeded by exhaustive inspections by Israeli authorities and that aid trucks sometimes come under fire from Israeli forces.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
One of the leading American institutes devoted to research on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program sounded an alarm this week over the regime’s uninspected underground site in the Zagros Mountains.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have not been allowed to visit the secret site, known as Pickaxe Mountain.
The highly fortified facility is casting serious doubt on Iran’s willingness to abide by the terms of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) reached with the Trump administration. The United States, together with Israel, launched Operation Epic Fury Feb. 28, 2026, targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities.
Experts from the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) argue that halting work at Pickaxe Mountain and allowing IAEA inspectors access would be a key good-faith measure to test whether Iran is prepared to abandon its pattern of deception.
OBAMA-ERA INSPECTION FLAWS IN IRAN COULD PERSIST AS EXPERTS WARN OF NUCLEAR BLIND SPOTS
A satellite image shows an overview of the Pickaxe Mountain tunnel complex in Natanz. (Vantor/Handout via Reuters)
Spencer Faragasso, a senior fellow with the group who covers Iran, North Korea, illicit trade, and nuclear issues, wrote on X: “Important update by us at @TheGoodISIS. The ongoing work at Pickaxe Mountain is deeply concerning. This work has continued steadily since at least 2020. In my view, this is a hedge by Iran in case negotiations fail — they will then have a nuclear facility in a late stage of construction. We assessed that Pickaxe is likely large enough to hold an enrichment plant.”
Iran has used facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan to enrich uranium, the key material for a nuclear weapons program.
Faragasso added, “If Iran is serious about negotiating, it should halt construction at Pickaxe Mountain as a token of good faith. But what can be expected from a regime as brutal and conniving as Iran’s?”
The institute posted a detailed analysis of new satellite imagery from late June 2026 showing continued activity at Pickaxe Mountain.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION UNVEILS SWEEPING TERMS OF PROPOSED IRAN AGREEMENT
Vice President JD Vance prior to a meeting between the United States, Iran, Pakistan and Qatar at the Bürgenstock luxury hotel complex overlooking Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, June 21, 2026. (Fabrice Coffrini/Keystone via AP)
The institute wrote that “at Pickaxe Mountain, vehicle activity can be seen on the roads leading to the open set of Western tunnel portals, indicating that construction inside the tunnel complex, as well as hardening of the tunnel entrance, are ongoing. The MOU signed between the United States and Iran requires that Iran maintain the status quo, which should prohibit construction at any nuclear-related facility, including Pickaxe Mountain.”
In late June, the IAEA declined to answer a detailed Fox News Digital query on whether it would seek access to the Pickaxe Mountain facility. According to the satellite imagery obtained by the institute, “at Natanz, little activity can be seen. The access points to the below-ground enrichment halls have not been repaired.
“The personnel entrances remain destroyed, and vehicle entrances remain severely damaged. A single vehicle can be seen on the road outside of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP), which was destroyed in June 2025 but was later covered by Iran.”
As U.S.-Iran talks opened Sunday in Switzerland, and a dispute over who controls and monitors billions of dollars in potentially unfrozen Iranian assets emerged. (Fabrice Coffrini/Pool via Reuters)
The institute also reported, “As of June 29, 2026, there is no observed activity at Esfahan. The tunnel portals remain backfilled with dirt.” ISIS tracked developments at the Fordow site, buried inside a mountain north of the holy Islamic city of Qom.
“At Fordow, as earlier reported by the Institute, between May 10 and May 18, Iran added passive defensive measures in the form of earthen/rocky mounds and other objects on the roads leading to the tunnel entrances. The alternating placements of the piles/objects are very precise, which creates a series of chicanes, indicating they are not intended as obstructions but rather to prevent rapid ingress and egress by any vehicle toward the tunnels.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The institute added, “The June 21 Vantor image shows that the objects along the road remain there. The tunnel portals also remain backfilled with dirt” at Fordow.
Fox News Digital sent questions to the State Department and the Iranian Mission to the United Nations.
Published On 6 Jul 2026
The funeral procession for late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has begun in Tehran as authorities prepare for crowds that could rival those that turned out for his predecessor nearly four decades ago.
After lying in state for two days at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla religious complex, the body of Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the United States-Israel war on Iran, began its journey on Monday through the capital, accompanied by large crowds of mourners, state broadcaster IRIB reported.
Authorities are hoping to avoid a repeat of the chaos that marred the 1989 funeral of Khamenei’s predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, which drew an estimated 10 million people, according to the state news agency IRNA.
Crowd surges during Khomeini’s funeral killed more than 10 people and injured over 10,000.
Thousands filled the Grand Mosalla on Sunday to pay their respects to Khamenei and his four family members who were killed with him on February 28 in air strikes on his office in Tehran.
Monday’s procession will be followed by similar events in the clerical hub of Qom on Tuesday and in Iraq’s holy cities of Najaf and Karbala on Wednesday, culminating in Khamenei’s burial in his hometown of Mashhad in northeastern Iran on Thursday.
-
Colorado5 minutes agoStartups move to Colorado amid concerns state losing its luster for tech companies
-
Connecticut9 minutes agoParts of Connecticut could see nearly 7 inches of rain Monday
-
Delaware17 minutes ago
What Delaware’s New Probate Threshold Means for Your Estate Plan
-
Florida19 minutes agoSouth Florida’s top deals: Davie school building sells for $16M
-
Georgia25 minutes ago10 Best Towns In Georgia For Retirees
-
Hawaii32 minutes agoPaid parking lots debate continues – Hawaii Tribune-Herald
-
Idaho34 minutes agoATV Crash in Pine Takes Life of Gooding Man
-
Illinois40 minutes agoCatholic Charities Fort Worth Expands Research-Backed Anti-Poverty Program to Illinois
