Hacker News

Apple has removed most of the towns and villages in Lebanon from Apple maps

133 points by thepasswordis 2 hours ago | 89 comments

foxfired 2 hours ago

You can look up Maroun Al-Ras [0] and it's map coordinate [1]. If you search for the name, you find a garden of the same name, but not the village. The instagram reel that was posted earlier had more context [2].

From wikipedia:

> In October 2024, IDF forces operated in the village as part of its invasion of southern Lebanon. The Israeli flag was raised, after the victory.

Which Apple might use as a justification. There is a Israeli flag, so it must belong to them.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroun_al-Ras

[1]: https://maps.apple.com/frame?center=33.107500%2C35.444722&sp...

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47742363

mikert89 2 hours ago

Israel is really out there just killing everyone in the middle east

ryandrake 2 hours ago

Dark humor but it almost seems like Israel is using Apple Maps as a checklist.

cozzyd 2 hours ago

Perhaps this is a humanitarian action, messing with Apple tankplay.

neya 2 hours ago

They did the same thing when there was a war between India and China a while ago. As brutal as it sounds, time and again Apple always loves to be on the side of whichever market is bigger. It's really that simple (business wise). Morally? Perhaps not.

politelemon 2 hours ago

There is no perhaps.

aduffy 2 hours ago

This reminds me a bit of the Gulf of America fiasco from last year where if you changed your location to outside the US it would go back to showing Gulf of Mexico.

I'm not sure why they would do this for US users unless the US government requested it.

redox99 34 minutes ago

Google maps has done this forever. A good chunk of countries have disputed territories, and never in human history there has been a "universal" map that everybody agrees on.

nutjob2 2 hours ago

> I'm not sure why they would do this for US users unless the US government requested it.

Because the US govt. is petty and vindictive at the moment.

bdangubic 2 hours ago

US government demanded it, not requested it

microtonal 2 hours ago

Associated Press was even banned from the White House for calling it the Gulf of Mexico: https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-st...

creddit 2 hours ago

Currently 50 points and is just a link to Apple Maps with an unverified claim.

EDIT: I'm at -2 for stating a fact.

aduffy 2 hours ago

It is straightforward to visit any other online mapping service and see many villages labeled there.

Bing: https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=33.185932%7E35.321974&lvl=11.9&...

Google: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.1649913,35.2506666,11.55z

OSM: https://www.openstreetbrowser.org/#map=11/33.1554/35.2890

creddit 2 hours ago

Removed means they were there before which means comparison to other maps means nothing. It's possible Apple never had them in the first place. It's completely unverifiable with the link or your links.

aduffy 2 hours ago

OSM is a foundational data layer for GIS. If you're building a mapping service, you're almost certainly using OSM augmented by satellite imagery and other sources to find population zones that OSM has not found yet.

If you look at the Apple Maps satellite layer, you see thousands of structures spread across the area.

It is a reasonable assumption that these population centers were labeled and Apple (or one of its data partners) has withdrawn the labels.

creddit 2 hours ago

[flagged]

aduffy 2 hours ago

Alright, you haven't engaged with anything I've said above, clear you're just here to troll. Hope you have a nice day.

creddit 19 minutes ago

> It is a reasonable assumption that these population centers were labeled and Apple (or one of its data partners) has withdrawn the labels.

walletdrainer 47 minutes ago

Just check literally any Lebanese social media site?

Legend2440 2 hours ago

Yeah true, how do we know these bridges and towns were there beforehand? Maybe Apple has never had good coverage in this area.

Just linking to a map doesn't tell us what was removed or when.

creddit 2 hours ago

[flagged]

karmakurtisaani 59 minutes ago

Please don't post reddit style garbage comments like this.

bertil 2 hours ago

You can very easily verify the claim by following the link. Other than three major cities, there are no agglomeration listed in Lebanon. Other countries have detailed maps.

creddit 2 hours ago

Actually I can't because I've never seen if Apple ever had them in the first place.

bertil 2 hours ago

It sounds like a great opportunity to ask if people have used Apple Maps in Lebanon before.

creddit 2 hours ago

Is anyone stopping you from doing that? Do you need my permission? If so, granted. I think you should spend whatever effort you want to verify claims if you believe that would be of value.

bertil 47 minutes ago

You are assuming I didn’t know before this news came out.

nairboon 2 hours ago

Why do you say unverified? You can activate the hybrid satellite view and look around. There are many towns and cities showing up on satellite view without any label. That's easily verifiable.

creddit 2 hours ago

Do you know what the word "removed" means?

daneel_w 2 hours ago

I believe OP is asking for a before/after of Apple Maps, because just seeing the map now isn't telling us whether Apple previously disclosed the villages and towns. I'm sure OP isn't thinking that the region is full of random roads out in the wilderness leading to nothing, which is the wrong conclusion the downvoters are probably leaping at.

creddit 2 hours ago

Correct

boramalper 2 hours ago

> The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

You can open the link and see it for yourself; what other "verification" do you need?

quantummagic 2 hours ago

How did you verify that they previously existed on the Apple maps?

ps. your domain is misconfigured for your website, the www prefix is missing so only b....org works, but the link in your HN bio, doesn't.

creddit 2 hours ago

Do you know what the word "removed" means?

boramalper 27 minutes ago

You’re being pedantic because you know it’s likely true.

thepasswordis 2 hours ago

This is amid an ongoing bombing campaign by Israel which is primarily targeting civilians.

threethirtytwo 2 hours ago

[flagged]

mirzap 2 hours ago

Those towns and villages will be rebuilt after the war. This is not excuse for what Apple did, it is justification for ethnic cleansing and occupation. Same as with Gaza City. It existed for 3500 years, it will be rebuilt and it will outlive the US/Israel for sure.

threethirtytwo 2 hours ago

How is removing a city from a map a some sort of sign that apple did it for malicious reasons?

walletdrainer 2 hours ago

Of course it’s a deliberate political signal from Apple.

threethirtytwo 2 hours ago

What is the signal? Not snark, I’m not well informed and I need it spelled out.

walletdrainer 2 hours ago

The bulk of Israelis want to annex this territory and use it as an empty buffer zone, exterminating everyone who refuses to leave.

This genocide of course involves deleting those villages.

neya 2 hours ago

Why, because Apple can't do any wrong?

bigyabai 2 hours ago

I'm sure Apple doesn't see it as malicious, and that's precisely the issue. Apple's political grandstanding has forced them into awkward and contradictory positions.

luke5441 2 hours ago

Yeah, maybe they have some kind of computer vision algorithm that automatically recognizes that the villages are now only rubble in satellite pictures and auomatically update the map /s

alexander2002 2 hours ago

[flagged]

threethirtytwo 2 hours ago

[flagged]

bigyabai 2 hours ago

> the map should not navigate there, my life would be in danger.

Why is Yemen, Iran, Sudan and Ukraine still mapped then?

threethirtytwo 2 hours ago

Were those cities bombed out?

Pay08 2 hours ago

None of them are cities, but yes, many cities in those countries are rubble.

Chance-Device 2 hours ago

This saddens me and I don’t understand why it is allowed to continue.

And I’m not just talking about Apple Maps.

dryarzeg 2 hours ago

This saddens me as well, because that's the type of thing that happens every day where I live, but...

> I don’t understand why it is allowed to continue.

The answer is even sadder. It's even worse. And it is as follows: because there's not enough people who are taking action, and from those taking action there's not enough people in power to change something significantly. At least that's how I see it. And... I can't even blame those who don't take action - because many people feel completely powerless, they feel like "what you can do to stop this war/other thing if you're just a regular human?"

jampekka 58 minutes ago

There's also a huge cost for taking action about this especially in the US. You can easily get thrown out of school, have your career destroyed or be deported.

dvfjsdhgfv 4 minutes ago

This is mostly a US thing. Netanyahu and Putin are two war criminals according to International Court of Justice. Although Trump threatened the ICJ, this doesn't change that basic fact.

Chance-Device 2 hours ago

This goes beyond direct action by individuals, it’s completely obvious what’s happening and it happens because the US political system has been captured.

cassianoleal 2 hours ago

The US political system is this. It has not been recently "captured". This is business as usual for them.

Pay08 2 hours ago

Captured by whom?

Chance-Device 2 hours ago

This comes to mind: https://nypost.com/2025/03/19/us-news/benjamin-netanyahu-gif...

jampekka 56 minutes ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore...

AdmiralAsshat 11 minutes ago

129 points in 2 hours, and this article mysteriously disappears from the front page of HN.

You who intentionally hide this information are complicit in genocide.

dvfjsdhgfv 7 minutes ago

This is quite normal for politics-related news on HN. Many people flag them and they disappear from the FP. Whatever contentious issue you take, there always people who will dislike an even or how it's presented and will flag the submission.

throwaway132448 2 hours ago

What’s the point in sharing these articles on HN, when the comment section shows they are clearly just used as an excuse for people to vocally confirm their own biases?

Bengalilol 2 hours ago

This is not an article, but a link to Apple Plans/Maps where you can observe all locations have been removed. As for now, it is hard to conclude anything but this looks like a bug (I know I am being optimistic).

throwaway132448 2 hours ago

Ok, so remove “these articles” and replace with “this” and my point still stands.

Bengalilol 2 hours ago

I concur

zeandcode 2 hours ago

This is insane

Jimmc414 2 hours ago

Willful blindness as a service

jjtheblunt 2 hours ago

Apple maps used (last i knew) Scala to import externally sourced map datasets continuously, and those may have lost towns and villages in Lebanon.

aduffy 2 hours ago

I don't understand what using Scala has to do with anything here.

finnlab 2 hours ago

I don't know either but here is the answer from Wikipedia: "The main provider of map data is TomTom, but data is also supplied by Automotive Navigation Data, Getchee, Hexagon AB, IGN, Increment P, Intermap Technologies, LeadDog, MDA Information Systems, OpenStreetMap, and Waze."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Maps

jjtheblunt 2 hours ago

yeah Scala doesn't matter, just thought that was interesting as a "factoid"

antihero 2 hours ago

What purpose would this serve in any way?

Could it be that their data source is tied to satellite data that is now being blacked out?

bertil 2 hours ago

Satellite source would require detailed editing, and there’s very little chance those are fully automated. The entire Middle-East is being blocked, but only Lebanon is being affected.

It could be that they have a provider in Lebanon that was bombed but I’ve never heard of a cartographer with local dependencies like that.

cozzyd 2 hours ago

Surely they could just... Leave what they used to have?

bertil 2 hours ago

Yeah, that’s the default option for detailed databases like that. Large deletion are either technical issues (and that should affect a lot more than one country) or deliberate edits.

oa335 2 hours ago

Any justification given by Apple?

johndevor 2 hours ago

We all know why, but we're too scared to say.

ryandrake 2 hours ago

This kind of innuendo adds nothing of value to the conversation. Either say what you intend to say, or just don't post. The coy "I know something but can't say it" is silly and just sounds like you have a persecution complex.

Pay08 2 hours ago

They gave up the pretense much easier than I thought they would.

walletdrainer 55 minutes ago

We’re not allowed to criticise Israel because most jews are lunatics that consider such criticism an antisemitic attack on their person regardless of what actual ties they may have to the country.

oa335 2 minutes ago

> most jews are lunatics

Ironically, this is actually antisemitic.

johndevor 2 hours ago

[flagged]

throwaway132448 2 hours ago

It must be hard being so repressed.

bigyabai 2 hours ago

It's certainly not made easy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws

deadbolt 2 hours ago

Yeah and if you say it, your comment gets flagged just like this post has been.

johndevor 2 hours ago

And your taxes get audited!

stri8ted 2 hours ago

Entire segments of the podcast sphere are making their money talking about these so-called unspeakable subjects. Why don't you share what you really think.

johndevor 2 hours ago

[flagged]

colechristensen 2 hours ago

Apple does much of their own mapping but they also rely quite a bit on external data sources, whichever one of those they use probably dropped the data for one reason or another.

formerly_proven 2 hours ago

They might genuinely not exist any more. The world's attention was heavily distracted by the campaign in Iran and the Hormuz strait while Israel never stopped doing their ...stuff... in Lebanon.

jampekka 2 hours ago

This is sadly not that far fetched.

"The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations."

"The demolitions came after Israel’s minister of defence, Israel Katz, called for the destruction of “all houses” in border villages “in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza” to stop threats to communities in northern Israel. The Israeli military destroyed 90% of homes in Rafah, in south Gaza."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/12/how-israeli-of...

nativeit 2 hours ago

So did Munich stop existing after we leveled it in 1944?

amarant 2 hours ago

And if they do, they probably don't want to be found

moogly 2 hours ago

War crimes. War crimes are the words you're looking for.

contingencies 2 hours ago

Apple: 1984 as a service. "We know walled gardens."

Quick: someone do the graphic, you can sell merch. Mail a freebie and a purchase link to every makerspace on the planet.

Some interesting background to current hostilities: "The UN Security Council has voted to wind up the near 50 year UNIFIL [peace keeping] mission after lobbying from Israel pushed the United States to veto its renewal. The mission will end in 2027." https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/whatsinblue/2025/08/un...

morkalork 2 hours ago

How 1984 of them. "This village never existed, stop asking about it"

proshno 2 hours ago

[dead]