🔗 Share this article

24 months of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and ground invasion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, nearly the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN says most homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The military operation came in response to Hamas's unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were captured.

Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the militant organization, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to transfer control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to relinquishing any future political role in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - about a quarter of the size of London - bordered on three sides by sealed frontiers with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Extent of Damage

Over nine out of ten residences are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and experts supported by the UN say there is starvation in Gaza City.

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israeli officials have dismissed the commission’s report, describing it as "distorted and false".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has become in large parts unlivable.

How the Destruction Spread

Israel's campaign initially focused on northern Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the civilian population. The group refuted these allegations.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was among the initial locations struck by Israeli strikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and additional cities in the north and instructed residents to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza river before it launched its ground invasion at the end of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching air strikes on the urban areas in the south which hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were escaping to. By the close of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did much of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its airstrikes on the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 over 50% of structures in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a truce was announced in early 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, as per the Gaza health authority.

And the destruction has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN estimates more than 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, the militant group - which is designated as a terrorist organisation by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and other armed groups allied to it have been engaged in intense battles against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli troops.

Israeli authorities state Hamas uses non-military structures such as hospitals for armed operations - but the group denies these claims.

Before the war, the majority of Gaza’s population lived in its primary urban centers - Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Deir al-Balah city, in the centre, and Gaza City.

Within 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the ceasefire was declared after 15 months, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been internally displaced - they remain unable to return home.

Families have moved repeatedly as Israel changed the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of Wadi Gaza river, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to leave a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli military warned people to evacuate before military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as no-go zones - where restrictions are in place - or making them subject to displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to evacuate entirely.

At first the evacuation orders applied to two regions - in the North Gaza and Khan Younis governorates - with a “no-go” area in place along the entire frontier.

Humanitarian organizations have to co-ordinate with the Israeli authorities to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any relief supplies from entering the territory at the beginning of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Limited aid is now permitted to enter, although aid agencies still say it is insufficient.

By the beginning of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and hospitals were limiting distribution of painkillers and antibiotics.

The humanitarian organization ActionAid warned that a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" loomed.

Israel’s defence minister declared on 16 April that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was impacted by Israeli restrictions - including the majority of North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the whole of the Rafah governorate in the south, as reported by the UN.

And in May, Israel initiated a land operation named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to secure the release of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the regions affected by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82% of Gaza, as per the UN.

The first phase of the campaign concentrated on objectives within northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in the month of August Israel announced plans to capture and occupy the entire city of Gaza itself - which it has called the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most crowded part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 people living there.

Individuals who stayed behind were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has persisted in conducting deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have so far fled the city of Gaza, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

But many more thousands remain there in dire humanitarian conditions, with health and other essential services failing.

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including