alt.hn

4/12/2026 at 6:19:02 PM

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

 https://maps.apple.com/frame?center=33.723388%2C35.614698&span=1.983925%2C4.004193

by thepasswordis

4/12/2026 at 9:16:27 PM

Multiple commenters here are asking if the towns and villages were ever included in Apple maps in the first place, and some people are saying we should obviously assume they were.

However, a quick search reveals at least a few people claiming that Apple Maps has always been empty for Lebanon outside of major cities (and at least one commenter says they are Lebanese):

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1sjmrol/comment/oft1...

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1sjoxqo/...

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1sjo66s/apple_maps...

https://www.reddit.com/r/lebanon/comments/1sjou17/apple_maps...

I don't know how trustworthy these comments are, but I don't see anyone contradicting them.

So it's definitely not clear this has anything to do with the current war.

by crazygringo

4/12/2026 at 9:22:50 PM

Here's a screenshot from a 2020 tweet that implies this was the case (although it is not zoomed in very far).

https://x.com/hezbolsonaro/status/1310354231795171328

Still odd because OSM has all these towns and Apple appears to be using the OSM street network, but not showing the labels

by ks2048

4/12/2026 at 9:56:17 PM

Interesting. Would be good to know if there are any other locations with the same condition.

by xg15

4/12/2026 at 9:35:41 PM

Why do we need to bother with facts when we can do rage bait conspiracy theories instead?

by breppp

4/13/2026 at 8:08:11 AM

This thread is bizzare, full of commenters who pretend not to understand why the OP post doesn't prove anything. It's not the first pro-Lebanon anti-Israel post either in the last few days.

by sunaookami

4/13/2026 at 10:36:08 AM

people are not upset at Apple.

people are upset at Israel for physically erasing entire nations: babies, children, civilians, elderly, women, infrastructure, etc.

once you and all israel apologist understand the gravity of the crimes, it will be easier to understand people's reaction

by bijowo1676

4/12/2026 at 6:43:55 PM

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

by foxfired

4/13/2026 at 9:39:43 AM

it is good that hacker news is the place where I saw the most people using their brains and noticing that there is no proof of removal in this claim as there is no before image showing they were there in the first place.

but it is concerning that there is still a lot of people who totally miss this obvious flaw in the claim.

it takes a couple minutes to test the claim and notice that the issue in affecting all Lebanon and not only the Southern region where israel is invading and leveling entire villages to the ground as they did in Gaza.

zooming in around the Lebanon border you notice instantly that a lot of information is missing as the background become white: https://i.imgur.com/L2p1j15.png

and following this clue, you soon notice that the same issue of missing labels is also happening in Syria: https://i.imgur.com/8p1ANAZ.png

there is no evidence supporting the claim and evidence actually tends to disprove it.

by bigbugbag

4/13/2026 at 1:31:39 AM

I think the bigger story here is that Israel are removing (in physical terms) towns and villages from Lebanon. Maps is one thing but ethnic cleansing is another.

by karim79

4/13/2026 at 3:00:11 AM

Netanyahu threw a temper tantrum on Wednesday (8th of April) and who suffered? Lebanese civilians that's who. The man (if you can call him that) is running on fumes at the moment. In the near future he'll wish he never left his original profession as a furniture salesman.

by karim79

4/12/2026 at 6:33:51 PM

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.

by aduffy

4/12/2026 at 7:34:52 PM

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.

by redox99

4/12/2026 at 8:29:25 PM

Sure, but I'm in the US, which is not a party to the conflict between Israel and Lebanon. To my knowledge the US continues to recognize Lebanon as a sovereign country.

by aduffy

4/12/2026 at 8:50:08 PM

Not a party to the conflict? Are you joking? Don’t focus on what the US says. Focus on what it does.

by devin

4/12/2026 at 9:03:43 PM

Yea, that user made the most ridiculous statement.

I think the Onion did a piece saying something like "Netanyahu dead, Trump must go back to being the only president of the United States", and while satire, is a bit enlightening of the actual situation here.

by pixl97

4/12/2026 at 10:08:50 PM

In the case of the "Gulf of America" thing there was a clear and open statement by the executive that they wanted the maps changed (note that even in the US the name is still legally "Gulf of Mexico"). Apple and Google both decided to acquiesce to curry favor.

TMK there is no current government order to eliminate large swaths of Lebanon from maps. So the fact that Apple is doing this (seemingly on its own, despite all other mapping services reflecting the original place names) is the thing I'm explicitly calling out as being weird.

by aduffy

4/12/2026 at 8:52:59 PM

So does Israel, it’s not even a war with Lebanon it’s just happening there but the Lebanese government and armed are not participating in it

by wqaatwt

4/12/2026 at 9:00:50 PM

What's a little occupied, extra-territorial buffer zone between respectful neighbors? Nothing says "I respect your sovereignty" more leveling all buildings to the ground. Golan now, there's nothing to see here.

by overfeed

4/12/2026 at 8:57:01 PM

They hardly have electricity so there's nobody to fight back really. The international community left them to die after that big explosion and the country has been scraping by ever since.

by wolvoleo

4/12/2026 at 10:42:06 PM

It descended into the same malaise as every other islamic country without oil aka wealth transfer by the worlds economy?

by cineticdaffodil

4/12/2026 at 8:34:52 PM

This isn't happening on Google Maps though is it? We're just talking about Apple Maps here.

by DashAnimal

4/12/2026 at 8:38:43 PM

We had to build a very expensive and risky pier to get aid into to Gaza instead of just sending it through our ally Israel to be delivered over the ground. There's something different than a normal ally relationship.

by cma

4/12/2026 at 8:56:39 PM

A very expensive and risky pier that still just delivered the aid to an IDF base inside Gaza and not to Gazans (or aid orgs) directly. Based on a plan from an Israeli think tank...

by xg15

4/12/2026 at 9:35:14 PM

Blame the Israeli public for not wanting to feed their enemy.

by flyinglizard

4/13/2026 at 10:03:54 AM

absolutely do blame the Israeli public for their state murdering innocent civilians in other countries (Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Syria). It's their state, they should do something about it.

by tpm

4/12/2026 at 9:46:24 PM

And not letting themselves or anyone else feed them either, huh?

by xg15

4/12/2026 at 10:43:23 PM

It was so bad they had to post pictures of starving Syrians.

by cineticdaffodil

4/13/2026 at 2:00:45 AM

[flagged]

by oompydoompy74

4/12/2026 at 8:50:44 PM

[flagged]

by DANmode

4/12/2026 at 9:02:22 PM

I think part of the weird disbelief on my part is the speed with which those changes are submitted and implemented. I don't recall things changing that fast with disputed territories in Ukraine/Russia conflict.

by iugtmkbdfil834

4/12/2026 at 9:20:36 PM

i wouldn’t consider it very disputed, the only country “disputing” who it belongs to is israel. all other countries agree that area belongs to lebanon.

by yThough

4/12/2026 at 9:44:35 PM

This is worldwide, not just for US users.

And most towns seem missing, including in areas Israel has never bombed.

It keeps blowing me away how brain dead the internet can be.

by concinds

4/12/2026 at 6:50:47 PM

US government demanded it, not requested it

by bdangubic

4/12/2026 at 8:37:27 PM

Yeah, that was another one of the constant mask-off moments. The Party of Free Speech hates free speech.

by solid_fuel

4/12/2026 at 7:03:27 PM

> 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.

by nutjob2

4/12/2026 at 8:51:23 PM

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

And has been for many, many years.

by Ylpertnodi

4/12/2026 at 6:31:03 PM

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

And I’m not just talking about Apple Maps.

by Chance-Device

4/12/2026 at 6:42:30 PM

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?"

by dryarzeg

4/12/2026 at 7:10:46 PM

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.

by jampekka

4/12/2026 at 9:04:36 PM

This. There are entire groups dedicated to rooting out any sign of deviation from per-authorized storyline and verbiage. It is particularly striking given that US considers itself 'free speech' bastion.

by iugtmkbdfil834

4/12/2026 at 8:04:41 PM

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.

by dvfjsdhgfv

4/12/2026 at 9:08:13 PM

Already in 2002 US passed the "American Service-Members' Protection Act" that allows USA to deploy military to prevent U.S. or allied officials and military personnel from being prosecuted or detained by the ICC.

It passed via bypartisan vote well in time before US launched the illegal invasion of Iraq in which it committed various war crimes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

by jampekka

4/12/2026 at 8:47:52 PM

> Netanyahu and Putin are two war criminals according to International Court of Justice.

You mean the ICC, not the ICJ. The latter is a separate body that handles disputes between states.

Both have warrants for arrest by the ICC but note that neither Putin nor Netanyahu have been tried or convicted by the International Criminal Court.

by andsoitis

4/12/2026 at 8:53:06 PM

> Although Trump threatened the ICJ

I’ve wondered, in the immediate aftermath of his recent genocidal threats, whether Mr. Trump was feeling left out of that club.

by kashunstva

4/12/2026 at 6:51:43 PM

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.

by Chance-Device

4/12/2026 at 7:04:40 PM

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

by cassianoleal

4/12/2026 at 8:55:58 PM

it... feels... more captured than usual, lately

by ajkjk

4/12/2026 at 9:48:08 PM

Not to those who have been on the receiving end. It's just less concealed, which in some ways is quite refreshing.

by cassianoleal

4/12/2026 at 9:08:02 PM

gross

by jazzyjackson

4/12/2026 at 6:35:28 PM

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

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

by creddit

4/12/2026 at 6:39:35 PM

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

by aduffy

4/12/2026 at 6:41:33 PM

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.

by creddit

4/12/2026 at 6:49:03 PM

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.

by aduffy

4/13/2026 at 9:28:57 AM

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

and if stop fixating on South Lebanon and go to other places where israel is not invading and destroying villages, let's say Syria, you'll notice the exact same issue: https://imgur.com/8p1ANAZ

so your argument actually go against what you attempt to demonstrate.

now why is apple bad at maps in this area and possibly other areas elsewhere in the world is a different matter.

by bigbugbag

4/12/2026 at 6:55:36 PM

[flagged]

by creddit

4/12/2026 at 7:05:10 PM

[flagged]

by aduffy

4/12/2026 at 7:48:57 PM

[flagged]

by creddit

4/12/2026 at 7:21:32 PM

Just check literally any Lebanese social media site?

by walletdrainer

4/12/2026 at 8:58:43 PM

I wish this thread had more discussion on why Apple Maps is missing the labels but Google and Bing are not. That’s awfully curious, no?

by forrestthewoods

4/12/2026 at 6:39:10 PM

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.

by Legend2440

4/12/2026 at 9:39:33 PM

My family name comes from a Christian town in the mountains of Lebanon. I'm positive it was previously on Apple Maps (I've shown it to people before), but now has no label. It still exists on other mapping services and if I search on DuckDuckGo, the top info summary includes an Apple Maps widget with the town. Clicking on it takes me to Apple Maps with the pin in the right place, without a label.

So it's clear that it was there and is no longer there. I'm not making a judgement as to why it's no longer there (the post on X makes an unsubstantiated claim that it's intentional). Could be a bug for all I know. I'm unwilling to make the leap that it's some malicious attempt without actual evidence. I can only verify that it no longer has a label.

by nsagent

4/12/2026 at 11:17:10 PM

I noticed a post on Reddit that claims Apple Maps only briefly had small towns listed. It's possible when I showed the town off in Apple Maps it could have been during that window. I looked through my texts and found when I recently shared the town a couple months ago it was on Google Maps because I was sharing a picture that was posted on Google Maps (my mom sent me an old photo of an overlook of the town and I sent a modern picture with the same vantage). To my knowledge Apple never had any local photos (just the town label; however briefly).

https://safereddit.com/r/applemaps/comments/1sjlfs2/where_ar...

Since I don't look at the town often, I'm certainly willing to consider that they once had a data broker for the maps that they no longer have access to (or possibly trialed a data broker). Anyway, just thought I'd add as much context as possible, as it's definitely more nuanced than the social media posts imply.

by nsagent

4/12/2026 at 6:40:23 PM

[flagged]

by creddit

4/12/2026 at 7:09:54 PM

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

by karmakurtisaani

4/12/2026 at 6:51:19 PM

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.

by nairboon

4/12/2026 at 9:07:42 PM

What's not easily verifiable is (1) whether they were removed, in the sense that they were there before and now are not; (2) if so, when; and (3) if so, why.

The obvious interpretation—that they've been removed for political reasons connected to the current war—would require knowing all 3 of these, and we don't know those things yet.

by dang

4/13/2026 at 1:39:51 AM

I don't know if Southern Lebanon town names were removed or never there. In either case it seems quite odd that the southern part of Lebanon has been left so void of labelling.

Perhaps the submission title could be changed just to reflect this seemingly odd paucity of town names in S. Lebanon only on Apple Maps?

by oska

4/12/2026 at 9:41:49 PM

I can only verify #1. I make no claim to issues #2 or #3. See my comment here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47744840

Edit: I've replied to my previous post with a bit more context. Seems it's possible it was only ever briefly on Apple Maps.

by nsagent

4/13/2026 at 9:31:27 AM

and you can easily verify that this issue is not only in South Lebanon as it is also the case in Syria: https://imgur.com/8p1ANAZ and everywhere in Lebanon

so the verification process you suggest actually disproves the claim.

by bigbugbag

4/13/2026 at 9:15:56 AM

You can verify it by clicking on the link and looking at it.

by KenArrari

4/12/2026 at 6:45:35 PM

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.

by daneel_w

4/12/2026 at 6:58:17 PM

Correct

by creddit

4/12/2026 at 6:38:51 PM

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.

by bertil

4/12/2026 at 6:39:20 PM

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

by creddit

4/12/2026 at 6:45:15 PM

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

by bertil

4/12/2026 at 6:49:58 PM

[flagged]

by creddit

4/12/2026 at 7:21:21 PM

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

by bertil

4/12/2026 at 6:39:39 PM

> 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?

by boramalper

4/12/2026 at 6:43:35 PM

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.

by quantummagic

4/12/2026 at 6:41:46 PM

[flagged]

by creddit

4/12/2026 at 8:58:51 PM

You've made your substantive point by asking whether the claim of removal is accurate. Please don't spoil that by breaking the site guidelines yourself, as you did here and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47742917 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47743106. That only makes things worse.

I agree with you that it isn't clear what's going on here. People are giving it an interpretation that feels obvious given the current context, and we don't yet know whether this interpretation is true.

Usually the obvious interpretation of an isolated internet factoid turns out not to be true.

by dang

4/12/2026 at 7:41:41 PM

[flagged]

by boramalper

4/12/2026 at 6:53:09 PM

[flagged]

by creddit

4/12/2026 at 6:41:37 PM

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.

by neya

4/12/2026 at 8:09:07 PM

How much do they rely on OSM these days? They were a TomTom shop, that was obviously horrible, then were OSM based. Is that still the case?

by cr125rider

4/12/2026 at 6:50:41 PM

There is no perhaps.

by politelemon

4/12/2026 at 6:28:59 PM

Any justification given by Apple?

by oa335

4/12/2026 at 6:32:42 PM

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.

by colechristensen

4/12/2026 at 6:31:39 PM

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.

by formerly_proven

4/12/2026 at 6:42:37 PM

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...

by jampekka

4/12/2026 at 6:38:30 PM

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

by nativeit

4/12/2026 at 6:32:49 PM

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

by amarant

4/12/2026 at 6:38:35 PM

[flagged]

by moogly

4/12/2026 at 6:33:49 PM

[flagged]

by johndevor

4/12/2026 at 6:51:30 PM

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.

by ryandrake

4/12/2026 at 10:29:51 PM

Say that to Brits who can be arrested for saying “I support Palestine Action”.

by Cyph0n

4/12/2026 at 7:01:50 PM

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

by Pay08

4/12/2026 at 9:24:26 PM

But what if you're not allowed to notice?

by gosub100

4/12/2026 at 8:48:15 PM

Some one said it directly in response to you and their comment is dead, so it's not just a "complex".

by colordrops

4/12/2026 at 7:13:33 PM

[flagged]

by walletdrainer

4/12/2026 at 8:14:20 PM

Posts such as yours — "most jews..." — help push forward the narrative that anyone critical of them is antisemitic.

by replooda

4/12/2026 at 8:06:52 PM

> most jews are lunatics

Ironically, this is actually antisemitic.

by oa335

4/12/2026 at 11:57:36 PM

he was referring to the famous DNA research, mentioned in this Israeli newspaper:

  Scientists Discover Gene That Predisposes Ashkenazi Jews to Schizophrenia
  Variations of the DNST3 gene make Ashkenazi Jews 40 percent more likely to develop schizophrenia and similar diseases.
https://www.haaretz.com/2013-11-26/ty-article/.premium/ashke...

by bijowo1676

4/13/2026 at 12:30:07 AM

No. Jews having 40% higher chances of schizophrenia in no way justifies the view that most Jews are lunatics. It’s a minuscule chance to begin with. Saying “most Jews are lunatics” is just antisemitic.

by oa335

4/13/2026 at 12:54:30 AM

You are ignoring the elephant in the room: the media environment that artifically inflames every single incident that involes a jew, no matter how small. This creates a fake perseption that if something bad happens to a jew in australia, that means that every single one of them around the world is in danger.

Similar to how school shootings in US are inflated to the point that every school has to create measures to defend against an active shooter.

Do this poisonous media tactice over decades and inflate the danger and you will make people pretty nervous and trip them over the edge

by bijowo1676

4/12/2026 at 6:52:18 PM

[flagged]

by johndevor

4/12/2026 at 6:41:01 PM

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.

by stri8ted

4/12/2026 at 9:25:37 PM

Maybe because there are laws against it?

by gosub100

4/12/2026 at 6:52:34 PM

[flagged]

by johndevor

4/12/2026 at 6:54:08 PM

[flagged]

by deadbolt

4/12/2026 at 6:55:01 PM

[flagged]

by johndevor

4/12/2026 at 6:34:25 PM

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

by jjtheblunt

4/12/2026 at 6:35:17 PM

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

by aduffy

4/12/2026 at 6:44:15 PM

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

by finnlab

4/12/2026 at 6:49:21 PM

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

by jjtheblunt

4/12/2026 at 6:34:19 PM

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?

by antihero

4/12/2026 at 6:40:57 PM

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.

by bertil

4/12/2026 at 6:42:23 PM

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

by cozzyd

4/12/2026 at 6:44:41 PM

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.

by bertil

4/12/2026 at 9:05:19 PM

The data is in OSM, which Apple uses (to what degree and where, I'm not sure).

by ks2048

4/12/2026 at 11:34:18 PM

Netanyahu is running out of steam. There's only so much a guy who went to furniture sales school can pull off, at least that's my hope. I think he'll have to face justice in a few months but will it be enough? I doubt it.

Edit: typo

by karim79

4/12/2026 at 8:33:53 PM

The whole thread here seems to be full of people who know why Apple would have done this for some kind of bad reason, but nobody saying what that bad reason is. Anybody want to say it? I don't actually know other than something about Israel?

by wilg

4/12/2026 at 8:52:06 PM

Israel is currently doing a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, with the stated aim of occupying the area and turning it into a depopulated "buffer zone" against Hezbollah. The Israeli army has announced that the Lebanese population must evacuate the entire area up to the Zahrani river.

In the area between the Israeli border and the Litani river (another river further south), the IDF is destroying all villages and has destroyed most of the bridges over the river, effectively isolating the area from the rest of Lebanon. All of that "smells" like annexation.

It seems Apple is doing preemptive compliance with the Israeli government here, by already erasing the destroyed villages from the map.

by xg15

4/12/2026 at 8:51:05 PM

Apple, like a lot of other tech companies in the US has both deep financial ties to Israel as well as deep business connections. The answer can be as simple as 'The government asked them to do so and they complied'.

by fzeroracer

4/12/2026 at 6:36:58 PM

[flagged]

by mikert89

4/12/2026 at 9:19:06 PM

With US-made munitions

by gosub100

4/12/2026 at 9:29:22 PM

Don’t underestimate Israeli munitions. Israel is like the sixth biggest defense exporter, bigger than the UK.

by flyinglizard

4/12/2026 at 6:42:38 PM

[flagged]

by ryandrake

4/12/2026 at 6:47:11 PM

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

by cozzyd

4/12/2026 at 9:33:14 PM

Israel is done being on the receiving end of the Iranian octopus. No more Iranian missiles, rockets, drones, or Iranian funded and directed Islamist terrorists on its borders.

Only Syria is an exception: there, it was internal Druze pressure on the Israeli government to act to protect their brothers in Syria.

by flyinglizard

4/12/2026 at 9:40:10 PM

Israel and the US are the number one terrorists on the planet. Israel started this fight and continues to fan the flames of war in the region.

Israel instead should be a democracy with equal rights for all subject to its rule instead of an oppressive, expansionist, Jewish-supremacist state.

Israel’s existence by violence is the source of the problem. Israel’s dismantlement is the answer.

So, which reply will you go with? They started it? Or maybe “you expect us to just give terrorists equal rights?”

by nielsbot

4/12/2026 at 9:55:52 PM

Your reply is too high level for him, won't get a reasonable response

by hexfran

4/12/2026 at 9:59:04 PM

1. "Israel’s dismantlement is the answer"

2. Israel is attacked to be dismantled

3. Israel wins

4. "Israel’s existence by violence is the source of the problem"

5. Goto 1

by flyinglizard

4/13/2026 at 2:21:54 AM

Interesting you assumed violent destruction! I don’t suppose you’re Israeli? Also curious that Israel hasn’t yet “won” even when not being attacked.

I’m talking about a (relatively) peaceful process with reparations, right of return, and international policing. Destroying Israel through violence doesn’t move us forward.

by nielsbot

4/13/2026 at 9:39:12 AM

And how do you suggest this concept is marketed to Israelis? I mean, it doesn’t sound too appealing: giving their flourishing country away to Islamist elements and turning into Jewish a minority in what is essentially a large Gaza strip. It will need to happen by force.

You could argue for sanctions but with the fracturing of the Western world that’s not likely to happen, and the west is very heavily invested in Israel already (Apple has more R&D in Israel than in the entire EU; Nvidia does all of their networking stuff in Israel and now plans a 12k engineer campus; Microsoft, Intel, Google…). The west buys tons of Israeli weapons and if you live in the EU then congratulations, your sky is now protected by Israeli Arrow-3 systems that Germany bought for 5bn Euro.

And then there’s the Israeli nuclear deterrence and strong self reliance. Sanction it for something and it will likely make its own or get it from a different actor, this is what happens in the first 30 years of its existence (US would not sell it arms back then).

Add to that the Jewish communities in Western countries which would block any kind of sanctions.

All you’re left with for “dismantling” Israel are Islamist actors operating military. Iran, Turkey, the likes, which brings us back to the endless loop I’ve mentioned before.

How about, then, a different alternative where Israel is recognized as a done deal, just like the US is? In both cases someone suffered from their creation but no one is calling to dismantle the US and no one is giving Indians their home.

That won’t happen though because the Palestinians are weaponized against Israel by Islamists, and the conflict with Israel is just too convenient for countries like Egypt and Turkey to keep the inflamed rhetoric and to have someone to blame for all of their woes.

by flyinglizard

4/13/2026 at 9:50:49 AM

> Islamist elements

They're people. And this is not about religion it's about rights and land.

> turning into Jewish a minority

Again, why the focus on ethnicity and/or race here? Equal rights for all people without regard to religion or ethnicity. (Otherwise it's racism)

> It will need to happen by force.

Some kind of force, yes.

> not likely to happen

Doesn't make it morally wrong.

> west is very heavily invested in Israel

disgusting.

> strong self reliance

Pretty sure Israel can't survive in its current state without being propped up by the West.

> Sanction it for something and it will likely make its own or get it from a different actor, this is what happens in the first 30 years of its existence (US would not sell it arms back then).

We should still sanction them.

> "Islamist"

Stop saying this, it's racist and again diverts from the fact that the conflict is about peoples rights and land, not religion.

> How about, then, a different alternative where Israel is recognized as a done deal, just like the US is? In both cases someone suffered from their creation but no one is calling to dismantle the US and no one is giving Indians their home.

Yeah, that's fucked up. The US is fucked up. But, I think it will probably happen this way. The Palestinians who were originally on the land will be ethnically cleansed and/or put on reservations, let out to work in Isreal for cheap, and the Israelis will be free to party in the Gaza Riviera atop the bones of hundreds of thousands of buried Palestinian skulls.

> That won’t happen though because the Palestinians are weaponized against Israel by Islamists

It's. Not. About. Religion.

by nielsbot

4/12/2026 at 10:38:43 PM

Like lebanon was dismantled (it was a christian nation in the 1960s) solved all its problems? Giving in to the islamo supremacists just migrates the problem. If israel ends you will have dhjihad in cyprus, greek, al andaluz and africa. They dont give a fuck about that worthless strip of dessert beach, except for the fact that unsupressed dhimi thrive in it.

by cineticdaffodil

4/13/2026 at 12:41:41 AM

The only ethno-supremacists are the Israelis and the whole world is watching the Greater Israel Project unfold before their very eyes. It's concerning and probably unsustainable.

by karim79

4/13/2026 at 12:52:44 AM

I don’t think Israelis have heard of the “Greater Israel Project”. Sounds like scaremongering designed to defend the indefensible (Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, etc)

by flyinglizard

4/13/2026 at 3:04:05 AM

Tell me you know nothing of the regional history without telling me you know nothing of the regional history. Search “eretz yisrael”

by phs318u

4/12/2026 at 11:10:39 PM

What the fuck is a islamo supremacist? This is a non-sequitor invented by low brow fox news pundits that makes no fucking sense.

by elzbardico

4/13/2026 at 2:44:07 AM

There is no such thing. I'll accept that Iran's model is a bit weird but there's definitely no supremacy nor expansionism going on in the name of some book or some psychopath's mind (like Netanyahu)

by karim79

4/12/2026 at 11:08:53 PM

Israel apologists always conveniently forget that Israel is ALWAYS the agressor.

by elzbardico

4/12/2026 at 11:19:04 PM

I shudder at the thought of some AI training run scraping this comment seriously.

by flyinglizard

4/13/2026 at 2:57:09 AM

Israel getting fucked by Iranian tentacles is the last thing we all needed to imagine, thank you.

Starring Gal Gadot and Mojtaba's octopus.

by fakedang

4/12/2026 at 9:42:09 PM

[dead]

by weird_tentacles

4/13/2026 at 1:25:46 AM

Zionist Occupied App

by Drblessing

4/13/2026 at 4:57:52 AM

[flagged]

by tzeid

4/12/2026 at 6:42:33 PM

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...

by contingencies

4/12/2026 at 9:46:43 PM

Another reason to buy a Chinese android phone.

by mclightning

4/12/2026 at 8:23:39 PM

Why is this flagged?

by munib_ca

4/13/2026 at 10:15:38 AM

mass flagging by the entire shtetl

by bijowo1676

4/12/2026 at 6:38:00 PM

[flagged]

by zeandcode

4/12/2026 at 6:44:03 PM

Well…what to expect from these tech companies who are openly and shamelessly complicit of genoc/de and the worst crimes in humanity?

Just read it:

“Apple buys Israeli ‘pre-speech’ tech firm implicated in Gaza genocide” https://thegrayzone.com/2026/02/15/apple-buys-israeli-pre-sp...

And, of course, this post is flagged…because who know who run Y Combinator!

by proshno

4/12/2026 at 6:36:34 PM

[flagged]

by throwaway132448

4/12/2026 at 6:42:34 PM

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).

by Bengalilol

4/12/2026 at 6:44:40 PM

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

by throwaway132448

4/12/2026 at 6:54:29 PM

I concur

by Bengalilol

4/12/2026 at 7:57:35 PM

[flagged]

by AdmiralAsshat

4/12/2026 at 8:01:21 PM

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.

by dvfjsdhgfv

4/12/2026 at 6:36:10 PM

[flagged]

by Jimmc414

4/12/2026 at 8:38:44 PM

[flagged]

by intalentive

4/12/2026 at 8:52:50 PM

[flagged]

by samaltmanfried

4/13/2026 at 12:02:56 AM

funny thing you mention the word 'Lebensraum', it is actually non-ironically being pushed in Israeli society as a justification to lower housing costs.

  Lebensraum as a Justification for Israeli Settlements
  We were fortunate when we occupied the West Bank because had we not done so, where would we have come to live? And who knows how high housing prices would have risen?
https://www.haaretz.com/2011-08-26/ty-article/lebensraum-as-...

  Israel Needs ‘Lebensraum’ Says Blog by Major National Newspaper
https://www.newsweek.com/israel-needs-lebensraum-says-blog-m...

by bijowo1676

4/12/2026 at 10:18:28 PM

Let’s put it this way. I’d rather send money to North Korea than give a cent to an Israeli business. I wish they’d get served the same dose of humility that made Germany ashamed to make any display of national pride, such as openly waving the flag, for many decades.

But given who their closest ally is, many more people have to die before that wretched country finds a healthier way forward.

All my solidarity to the Jewish people that disavow any connection with the state of Israel. Your voices aren’t loud enough.

by sph

4/12/2026 at 11:01:44 PM

The majority of the population in Israel supports this. And the horrifying and surprising thing to me is that a number of my American Jewish friends will just say "they feel conflicted", while their parents (in their 60s by now) overwhelmingly support Israel. Obviously this is anecdotal but I still found it shocking. The scary thing is that this unhinged behavior will only lead to more antisemitism and violence directed back at them. It's so obviously counterproductive from my perspective as someone who hasn't had Israeli indoctrination. We're in a seriously dangerous moment but of course this has been building since the 40s when the country was founded on brutal dispossession and racial superiority.

by rozap

4/13/2026 at 12:22:44 AM

What is the alternative that Israelis could support instead? Just ignore Hezbollah's attacks? Give up on returning to their homes and schools in northern Israel?

by dlubarov

4/12/2026 at 11:13:24 PM

For all is worth, North Korea has been proving to be a far more peaceful member of the international community than Israel.

by elzbardico

4/12/2026 at 10:51:48 PM

Our voices aren’t loud enough because we are fucking terrified.

Look through this thread and see how many people broadly label Jews - not Israelis, not Zionists, but Jews - as the problem.

I am incredibly opposed to Israel’s evil actions, but I can’t stand to be part of the conversation because of the profound Jewish hate. Opposing Israel is not antisemitic, but these things I have seen written or heard stated, from left leaning Americans, in the last several years definitely are:

> Free Palestine, Kill all Jews

> Save a life, kill a local colonizer

> Hitler should have killed them all when he had the chance

> Zionist propaganda (in response to me saying the above occurred)

> Jewish people in this country (US) should be afraid

I’m not going to come back and read this comment, because I have utter certainty that in spite of vocally denouncing Israel’s violence, I will either be: accused of being a Zionist, talked down to about how this actually is Jews’ fault, or just straight up responded to with hate.

To be clear you aren’t the problem, what you have said is fine. Someone else is going to respond hatefully though.

by dbwkdofpqndjflf

4/12/2026 at 11:36:50 PM

These people are insane. They scare Jews out of their country, and where do they think they'll go? They're the same kind of people who think that letting Trump win and glass Gaza will somehow force Democratic voters to choose other candidates in their primaries to save Gazans.

All of their actions are against their stated interests, and if you try to point that out to them, even if you also say that you agree with their end goals, they'll call you a fascist. There is an extremism problem on the left, and while it isn't as big as the extremism problem on the right, it still exists and needs to be solved.

by lern_too_spel

4/12/2026 at 9:07:38 PM

Since when has war not been awful? I don’t remember anyone complaining when Hezbollah attacks Israel though.

by robertoandred

4/13/2026 at 12:25:33 AM

Hezbollah attacks invading tanks and soldiers.

israel drops bombs on children, women, elderly, mostly civilians.

one is a justified defense, another is a war crime and ethnic cleansing

by bijowo1676

4/13/2026 at 2:38:24 AM

Hezbollah attacks nursing homes and football games. How is that justified?

by robertoandred

4/13/2026 at 5:26:05 AM

nah, israel has been terrorizing all its neighbours non-stop since the creation of the colony, and even before its creation, the IDF's predecessor organizations have been recognized as the terrorist organizations (irgun lehi haganah) due to high profile terrorism (King david's hotel etc).

They actually imported the concept of terrorism from Europe into the middle east, which was pretty peaceful before

A lot of israeli prime ministers were members of these terrorist organizations and were engaged in massive ethnic cleansing (ben gurion, begin, shamir, sharon).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_terrorism

only a historically illiterate or extremely biased person would try whitewash what israel is doing right now in Lebanon

by bijowo1676

4/12/2026 at 9:11:09 PM

You mean to tell us you were living under a rock when there was an international outcry agaist Hezbollah attacking Israel?

by Vosporos

4/12/2026 at 9:18:39 PM

Where was this outcry? Hezbollah made northern Israel uninhabitable for years.

by robertoandred

4/12/2026 at 9:25:31 PM

Likewise… Israel has made southern Lebanon inhabitable. And large swaths of Palestine.

by cammikebrown

4/12/2026 at 11:22:58 PM

Ok, compare:

Hezbollah attacks against Israel since Israel started a war against Iran: 2 dead civilians Israel attacks against Lebanon: 2000 dead civilians

Similar ratio of children killed in Gaza where it's 1:500.

There's nothing comparable about what one side does to the other in this conflict.

by megous

4/13/2026 at 12:06:47 AM

So you’re paying attention to the last few weeks instead of the last several decades.

by robertoandred

4/12/2026 at 11:49:50 PM

Wars aren't supposed to be even. By this logic, the Nazis were the victims of WWII, and the Coalition was extremely evil in the Gulf War. And if Israel wants to be "better", it should just disable its air defenses to let Hezbollah "catch up".

If we're interested in an actual end to the violence, the focus should be on enforcing UNSC 1701. It's not like Israel can just ignore attacks against it.

by dlubarov

4/13/2026 at 2:17:46 AM

Germany lost fewer civilians than Poland or the Soviet Union, so not really victims by that logic.

And while it's true that German civilian casualties were a couple orders of magnitude higher than American civilian casualties, the war wasn't fought in the US, so it's not really a fair comparison.

While not directly relevant to the Israel/Lebanon conflict, it's probably also worth drawing a distinction between casualties of war and state-sanctioned killing outside the scope of combat.

Germany killed six million Jews in the Holocaust.

The Allies tried and executed ten high-ranking Nazi officials, including six civilians.

By that measure, the ratio of civilian killings is at least a million to one.

by jasomill

4/13/2026 at 3:02:35 AM

> the war wasn't fought in the US, so it's not really a fair comparison

What's unfair about it? In both cases, one side suffered less civilian harm because there wasn't much fighting in its own territory.

I think the point stands that "Israel must be bad because it only lost 2 civilians" makes as little sense as "the Nazis must be good because they lost a lot more civilians than Western allies".

If a framework for trying to judge morality penalizes states for effectively protecting their own civilian population, then it's a very bad framework.

by dlubarov

4/12/2026 at 6:35:56 PM

[flagged]

by morkalork

4/12/2026 at 8:35:46 PM

[flagged]

by readitalready

4/12/2026 at 9:27:13 PM

[flagged]

by ViktorRay

4/12/2026 at 9:47:15 PM

[flagged]

by speff

4/12/2026 at 9:54:31 PM

This is gonna be interesting with all the anti-zionist Jews in the US or the religious zionist evangelical christians...

But it's in line with the pro-Israel pattern of putting words into peoples' mouth or simply asserting that certain terms are "codes" that mean something different than what the speaker actually said.

by xg15

4/12/2026 at 8:43:55 PM

[dead]

by csmpltn3

4/12/2026 at 6:19:02 PM

[flagged]

by thepasswordis

4/12/2026 at 6:31:30 PM

[flagged]

by threethirtytwo

4/12/2026 at 6:35:02 PM

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.

by mirzap

4/12/2026 at 6:37:41 PM

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

by threethirtytwo

4/12/2026 at 9:10:43 PM

Given the context, how it is not? These are not some random place on the map that have disappeared.

by mirzap

4/12/2026 at 6:39:03 PM

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.

by bigyabai

4/12/2026 at 6:41:36 PM

[flagged]

by walletdrainer

4/12/2026 at 6:44:02 PM

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

by threethirtytwo

4/12/2026 at 6:57:19 PM

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.

by walletdrainer

4/12/2026 at 6:43:00 PM

[flagged]

by neya

4/12/2026 at 6:44:14 PM

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

by luke5441

4/12/2026 at 6:32:37 PM

[flagged]

by alexander2002

4/12/2026 at 6:40:04 PM

[flagged]

by threethirtytwo

4/12/2026 at 6:42:30 PM

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

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

by bigyabai

4/12/2026 at 6:44:24 PM

Were those cities bombed out?

by threethirtytwo

4/12/2026 at 6:58:28 PM

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

by Pay08