A German astronaut tweeted a photo taken from space yesterday with the caption: "my saddest photo yet".

Gerst is a German astronaut living and working on the International Space Station with over 84,000 followers on Twitter.

He explains that he can actually see explosions and rockets flying over the war-torn region.

The photo has received over 16,000 retweets since he posted it yesterday.

My saddest photo yet. From #ISS we can actually see explosions and rockets flying over #Gaza & #Israel pic.twitter.com/jNGWxHilSy

— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) July 23, 2014