Can satellite images and other public data confirm the facts in a reportage from a war zone?
A reportage and one question
On 27 September 2026, DIE ZEIT published a reportage by Mahsa Azad, with photos by Hashem Shakeri. It describes the Iranian coast of the Strait of Hormuz during the war. It tells of fishermen who could not work for months, smugglers, a Thai ship on the beach, oil on the sand and parents in Minab who lost their children.
On the day of publication, I gave the article to an AI agent (Claude Code) with one question: can you prove this with satellite images or other public data? The agent found the data sources, wrote the analysis code, read the news reports and made a 16-page report. This took approximately 80 minutes.
The strait is almost empty
IMF PortWatch counts cargo ships and tankers from their AIS signals. In 2025, approximately 85 ships went through the strait each day. On 1 March 2026, the number decreased to 20. On 2 March, it was 4. Since 1 August, the average is 4.4 ships per day.
A ship can stop its AIS transmission. For this reason, the agent also counted ships in 237 Sentinel-1 radar passes. Radar shows a ship with or without an AIS signal. In the shipping lanes, the median number of large ships per pass decreased from 19 before the war to between 2.5 and 4.
The ships wait on the two sides
At the Fujairah anchorage, outside the strait, the median before the war was 131 large ships. On 16 September 2026, radar showed 256. Off Dubai and Sharjah, inside the Gulf, the number of large ships was two times higher in May and June than before the war.
In the article, a woman on the Qeshm ferry says: “The whole world is waiting.” The radar images show this queue.
The Thai ship and the oil
The article describes a Thai ship that went aground near Ramchah on Qeshm Island. On 18 March, the beach is empty. From 28 March to 24 September, Sentinel-2 shows a bulk carrier on this beach in every clear image. News reports identify the ship as the Mayuree Naree.
The article also describes black oil on Naghasheh beach. On 10 August, Sentinel-2 shows an oil slick 4 to 6 km from this beach. On 26 July and on 25 August, the water is clean.
What is not correct
Three details are not correct or have no source. The article says that the oil came from a ship of the UAE. News reports connect the oil to the Minoan Pioneer, a ship with a Liberian flag. Official sources do not confirm the origin of the oil.
The article says that the Revolutionary Guards took control of the Thai ship. No report says this. The article calls the school in Minab a school for girls. Girls and boys died in the strike.
Two more statements are only partly correct: the “ceasefire of July” and the closed ports and factories. In total, the agent checked 13 statements. 8 are correct, 5 are partly correct and none is false.
What satellites cannot show
Satellites cannot show the people. They cannot show fear or grief. The conversations in the reportage are outside this check. The parts that I could check hold up. For me, this gives the rest of the story more weight.
The full report lists all sources and the method. The radar counts are for comparison over time. They are not a complete list of ships.
