Now, the front line no longer begins on the ground but hundreds of kilometers above our heads. In the confrontation between Iran, Israel, and the United States, satellite imagery has emerged as a formidable reconnaissance tool, almost a weapon in its own right. Israel claims that the Revolutionary Guards were using the Russian Khayyam satellite from a space center in Tehran to "observe Israel" and other countries in the region; on Sunday, the Israeli army said it had targeted this site, proof that these eyes in the sky carry significant weight in military decisions.
Another change, quieter but crucial for the reader: commercial satellites have opened a window of verification when access to combat zones remains restricted. Newsrooms and open-source investigators cross-reference images, geolocation data, and videos circulating online to reconstruct a timeline, assess destruction, and confirm a strike in Gaza or around a sensitive site. It's a meticulous investigation, with its limitations (an image doesn't tell the whole story), but also a rare virtue in wartime: reducing the space given to fabricated narratives.
When photography becomes ammunition
The problem is that the dissemination of these images is subject to shifting rules, and sometimes to overt national interests. For example, a Chinese company, MizarVision, claims to be able to post images showing US military movements online, while American operators must comply with licensing conditions imposed by Washington. Planet Labs PBC says it imposes a 96-hour delay for images of Gulf countries, compared to the usual few hours, citing the risk of use by Iran and the safety of civilians and allied personnel; Vantor, a popular supplier to the media, explains that it systematically excludes images of US or allied bases. In other words: see, yes, but not always, not everywhere, not right away.
And then there's the other battle, the one waged by fake news circulating at the speed of anger. An image sold as a "before/after" comparison of an American radar in Qatar, supposedly destroyed by an Iranian drone, has been circulating endlessly, even reaching the Tehran Times; visual inconsistencies, such as identical vehicles frozen in the same spot despite "modified" buildings, point to AI manipulation. Geolocation has even placed the scene in Manama, Bahrain, far from the initial narrative. In this war of pixels, the question is no longer just who strikes, but who shows and who manages to convince.
