Gaza Explosions and Rockets Seen from Space?

Earlier today a tweet went viral (over 12,000 retweets and over 3,000 favorites as of 0344 GMT 24/7/14; nearly 43,000 retweets, and over 12,000 favorites as of 2115 GMT 26/7/14) from astronaut Alexander Gerst, currently residing in the International Space Station (ISS):

My saddest photo yet. From #ISS we can actually see explosions and rockets flying over #Gaza & #Israel pic.twitter.com/jNGWxHilSy
— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) July 23, 2014

Maybe because I am spatially hyper-aware, but this immediately set off alarm bells for me. After taking a second with the image, I saw that the photo clearly is showing something entirely different from what the astronaut has implied.

The image is oriented with West at the top, and North to the right. The lights are from cities and highways. On the upper right Haifa and Haifa Bay are clearly visible. On the lower portion, Amman is clear (note the different color of lights for this city). In the middle of the image is Jerusalem, with the Tel Aviv metropolitan slightly above and to the right (Northwest). Between the two is Ben Gurion Airport. To the left (South) of Tel Aviv are Ashdod and Ashkelon respectively. Below and to the right (Southeast) of Ashdod and Ashkelon, Beer Sheva is clear, with the line between Beer Sheva and Tel Aviv being Highway 6. All the way to the upper left (Southwest) is al Arish, with Gaza between there and Ashkelon. Just to the lower right (Northeast) of Gaza is Sderot.

I have crudely annotated the image to show this. Remember the distance from Gaza City to Haifa is approximately 90 miles.

Unfortunately, due to Mr. Gerst being unclear with his words, and a whole lot of people (including a LOT of world-renowned reporters and their editors) not asking the right questions, the public is now of the opinion that this is a photo of explosions and rockets in Gaza. I will not contest Mr. Gerst's assertion that the rockets and explosions are visible from the ISS, but they are certainly not visible in the image he shared. Imagine how large an explosion would have to be for it to show up on a picture from space with such a large amount of land displayed (my guesstimate is that it shows about 180 miles by 110 miles). While Mr. Gerst apparently thinks that it is a sad photo, I think it is an awesome photo; I love how city lights look from space. If anything, I find this image to be awe-inspiring because of how to shows the mark of human civilization in the world.

UPDATE: finally Mr. Gerst acknowledged that there are no explosions visible in his photo. Unfortunately he did not post any correction to this on twitter, did not correct the many reporters and news sources that said there were explosions in the photo and simply posted a link to his blog where he briefly (and insufficiently in my opinion) discussed why the photo made him sad.

The Iranian government doesn't care about Syrians

Earlier today the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani tweeted the following:

What's happening in Gaza is one of the biggest tragedies of our time! Stop the aggression and stop the killing! #GazaUnderAttack
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) July 21, 2014

While what is happening in Gaza and Israel today is clearly a tragedy, it is far from one of the 'biggest tragedies of our time'. For example: MILLIONS in Syria are now displaced, and hundreds of thousands are dead, and at the same time Iranian support for Assad and Hezbollah continues unabated. The hypocrisy is self-evident so it is not worth writing much about. I hope that Iranians realize what their government is doing in Syria and are just as upset about that, as they may be with the situation in Gaza.

For an excellent review of Iranian-Syrian relations I recommend this IranPrimer article: Iran and Syria

(This is no way is meant to excuse misdeeds or hypocrisies of other governments. I spend most of my time focusing on Iran rather than other places)

Iran denies supporting Bahraini opposition forces

Bahrain's Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmad bin Muhammad Al Khalifa claimed that Iran was helping train opposition forces and interfering in Bahrain's internal affairs several days ago. This is a fairly regular occurrence and seems to happen every few months (January 2014, March 2014,  April 2011, May 2011 etc). Yesterday the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman denied this claim and expressed indignation that Bahrain was not respecting the civil rights of its citizens. The human rights situation is not great in Bahrain (See Human Rights Watch on Bahrain), but there are other places with a poor human rights record that Iran does not seem to have a problem with, such as North Korea, Sudan and Syria, and the situation in Iran is also nothing to brag about. 

This is probably a non-story like almost every other story in the news regarding Iran. At the same time, the fact that this event has had almost no coverage at all is interesting considering the other concurrent diplomatic issues. A United States government official in Bahrain was recently expelled from the country, and Bahrain has reportedly improved ties with the Kremlin. I don't see relations between the US and Bahrain suffering too much more, especially given the US Navy base in the kingdom, but the recent decisions by the Bahraini ruling family are interesting to say the least.