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Apple has removed most of the towns and villages in Lebanon from Apple maps?
https://x.com/EthanLevins2/status/2043366941922926940 https://x.com/EthanLevins2/status/2043366941922926940
- mikert89 6mo ago[flagged]
- ryandrake 6mo ago[flagged]
- cozzyd 6mo agoPerhaps this is a humanitarian action, messing with Apple tankplay.
- gosub100 6mo agoWith US-made munitions
- flyinglizard 6mo agoDon’t underestimate Israeli munitions. Israel is like the sixth biggest defense exporter, bigger than the UK.
- flyinglizard 6mo agoIsrael 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.
- nielsbot 6mo agoIsrael 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?”
- hexfran 6mo agoYour reply is too high level for him, won't get a reasonable response
- flyinglizard 6mo ago[flagged]
- nielsbot 6mo agoInteresting 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.
- flyinglizard 6mo agoAnd 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.
- thepasswordis 6mo ago[flagged]
- threethirtytwo 6mo ago[flagged]
- alexander2002 6mo ago[flagged]
- threethirtytwo 6mo ago[flagged]
- bigyabai 6mo ago> the map should not navigate there, my life would be in danger. Why is Yemen, Iran, Sudan and Ukraine still mapped then?
- threethirtytwo 6mo agoWere those cities bombed out?
- Pay08 6mo agoNone of them are cities, but yes, many cities in those countries are rubble.
- mirzap 6mo agoThose 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.
- oa335 6mo agoAny justification given by Apple?
- formerly_proven 6mo agoThey 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.
- amarant 6mo agoAnd if they do, they probably don't want to be found
- nativeit 6mo agoSo did Munich stop existing after we leveled it in 1944?
- moogly 6mo ago[flagged]
- jampekka 6mo agoThis 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-offensive-destroyed-entire-villages-in-lebanon https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/12/how-israeli-of...
- colechristensen 6mo agoApple 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.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Chance-Device 6mo agoThis saddens me and I don’t understand why it is allowed to continue. And I’m not just talking about Apple Maps.
- dryarzeg 6mo agoThis 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?"
- Chance-Device 6mo agoThis goes beyond direct action by individuals, it’s completely obvious what’s happening and it happens because the US political system has been captured.
- Pay08 6mo agoCaptured by whom?
- Chance-Device 6mo agoThis comes to mind: https://nypost.com/2025/03/19/us-news/benjamin-netanyahu-gifts-john-fetterman-a-silver-pager-during-israel-visit/ https://nypost.com/2025/03/19/us-news/benjamin-netanyahu-gif...
- jampekka 6mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore...
- aduffy 6mo agoThis 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.
- bdangubic 6mo agoUS government demanded it, not requested it
- microtonal 6mo agoAssociated Press was even banned from the White House for calling it the Gulf of Mexico: https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-statement-on-oval-office-access/ https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-st...
- solid_fuel 6mo agoYeah, that was another one of the constant mask-off moments. The Party of Free Speech hates free speech.
- nutjob2 6mo 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.
- Ylpertnodi 6mo ago> Because the US govt. is petty and vindictive at the moment. And has been for many, many years.
- redox99 6mo agoGoogle 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.
- antihero 6mo agoWhat 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 6mo agoSatellite 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.
- ks2048 6mo agoThe data is in OSM, which Apple uses (to what degree and where, I'm not sure).
- jjtheblunt 6mo agoApple maps used (last i knew) Scala to import externally sourced map datasets continuously, and those may have lost towns and villages in Lebanon.
- aduffy 6mo agoI don't understand what using Scala has to do with anything here.
- finnlab 6mo agoI 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Maps
- jjtheblunt 6mo agoyeah Scala doesn't matter, just thought that was interesting as a "factoid"
- _2d30 6mo agoCurrently 50 points and is just a link to Apple Maps with an unverified claim. EDIT: I'm at -2 for stating a fact.
- bertil 6mo agoYou 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.
- _2d30 6mo agoActually I can't because I've never seen if Apple ever had them in the first place.
- bertil 6mo agoIt sounds like a great opportunity to ask if people have used Apple Maps in Lebanon before.
- _2d30 6mo ago[flagged]
- bertil 6mo agoYou are assuming I didn’t know before this news came out.
- crazygringo 6mo agoIt seems like people are asking, and the answer is that these towns and villages have indeed never been on Apple Maps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47744594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47744594
- Legend2440 6mo agoYeah 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.
- morkalork 6mo ago[flagged]
- Jimmc414 6mo ago[flagged]
- throwaway132448 6mo ago[flagged]
- Bengalilol 6mo agoThis 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 6mo agoOk, so remove “these articles” and replace with “this” and my point still stands.
- Bengalilol 6mo agoI concur
- zeandcode 6mo ago[flagged]
- neya 6mo agoThey 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 6mo agoThere is no perhaps.
- cr125rider 6mo agoHow 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?
- contingencies 6mo agoApple: 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-interim-force-in-lebanon-unifil-vote-on-final-mandate-renewal-and-drawdown.php https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/whatsinblue/2025/08/un...
- foxfired 6mo agoYou 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroun_al-Ras [1]: https://maps.apple.com/frame?center=33.107500%2C35.444722&span=0.048042%2C0.099231 https://maps.apple.com/frame?center=33.107500%2C35.444722&sp... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47742363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47742363
- proshno 6mo agoWell…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-speech-firm/ 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!
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- AdmiralAsshat 6mo ago[flagged]
- dvfjsdhgfv 6mo agoThis 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.
- munib_ca 6mo agoWhy is this flagged?
- bijowo1676 6mo agomass flagging by the entire shtetl
- wilg 6mo agoThe 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?
- fzeroracer 6mo agoApple, 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'.
- xg15 6mo agoIsrael 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.
- readitalready 6mo ago[flagged]
- intalentive 6mo ago[flagged]
- csmpltn3 6mo ago[dead]
- samaltmanfried 6mo ago[flagged]
- robertoandred 6mo agoSince when has war not been awful? I don’t remember anyone complaining when Hezbollah attacks Israel though.
- Vosporos 6mo agoYou mean to tell us you were living under a rock when there was an international outcry agaist Hezbollah attacking Israel?
- robertoandred 6mo agoWhere was this outcry? Hezbollah made northern Israel uninhabitable for years.
- cammikebrown 6mo agoLikewise… Israel has made southern Lebanon inhabitable. And large swaths of Palestine.
- megous 6mo agoOk, 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.
- dlubarov 6mo agoWars 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.
- crazygringo 6mo agoMultiple 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/oft1pjp/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1sjmrol/comment/oft1... https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1sjoxqo/comment/oftck8g/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1sjoxqo/... https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1sjo66s/apple_maps_removed_all_villages_in_southern/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1sjo66s/apple_maps... https://www.reddit.com/r/lebanon/comments/1sjou17/apple_maps_situation/ 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.
- ks2048 6mo agoHere'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 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
- xg15 6mo agoInteresting. Would be good to know if there are any other locations with the same condition.
- breppp 6mo agoWhy do we need to bother with facts when we can do rage bait conspiracy theories instead?
- sunaookami 6mo agoThis 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.
- ViktorRay 6mo ago[flagged]
- speff 6mo ago[flagged]
- xg15 6mo agoThis 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.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- mclightning 6mo agoAnother reason to buy a Chinese android phone.
- karim79 6mo agoNetanyahu 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
- Drblessing 6mo agoZionist Occupied App
- karim79 6mo agoI 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.
- karim79 6mo agoNetanyahu 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.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- tzeid 6mo ago[flagged]
- bigbugbag 6mo agoit 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 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 https://i.imgur.com/8p1ANAZ.png there is no evidence supporting the claim and evidence actually tends to disprove it.