It’s definitely a hot button issue, but it’s not a particularly controversial position to decide that the conflict between Israel and Palestine, raging for weeks now after a period of relative peace, is altogether a bad thing.

For us in the West, it’s sometimes hard to gain a perspective on the conflict happening a world away. One astronaut just provided the world with perhaps the best perspective yet: A view of the conflict from outer space.

“My saddest photo yet. From #ISS we can actually see explosions and rockets flying over #Gaza & #Israel,” he wrote in a tweet.

— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) July 23, 2014

The conflict so far has claimed the lives of over 600 Palestinians and around 30 Israeli soldiers. The fighting began with Israel airstrikes and rockets fired from Gaza, and has now expanded into an Israel ground invasion on the enclave.