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Two years of fighting have devastated Gaza.

The Israeli bombing campaign and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority, almost the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN states most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation came in response to Hamas’ unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others were captured.

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

A ceasefire proposal has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to release all captives - living and deceased - and to hand over control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms or to giving up any political involvement in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is merely 41km in length and 10km in width - roughly one-fourth the area of London - surrounded on three sides by sealed frontiers with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is inhabited by more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

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

A UN investigative commission says Israel has committed acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israeli officials have dismissed the findings of the commission, describing it as "distorted and false".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has become in large parts unlivable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation initially focused on northern Gaza - where it claimed militants were concealed within the non-combatant residents. Hamas denied this.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was among the initial locations hit by airstrikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and additional cities in the north and instructed residents to move south of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive at the conclusion 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 fleeing towards. By the close of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did a large portion of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its bombing of the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an estimated 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been harmed, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, as per Gaza's health ministry.

And the destruction has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN estimates over 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

During the conflict, Hamas - which is classified as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions affiliated with it have been involved in intense battles against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, especially in the first months of the war.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses previously existed have been turned into debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says Hamas uses non-military structures such as medical centers for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

Before the war, the majority of Gaza’s population lived in its four main cities - Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Deir al-Balah, in the centre, and Gaza City.

Within 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had forced nearly half to leave their homes, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

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

Families have moved multiple times as Israel changed the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of Wadi Gaza river, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and later ordering people to evacuate a series of "safe zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military warned people to evacuate before operations in the area. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by warnings.

Restricted Areas Grow

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as no-go zones - where restrictions are in place - or imposing displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to leave completely.

Initially the orders to evacuate applied to two areas - in the North Gaza and Khan Younis governorates - with a “no-go” area in place along the whole border.

Humanitarian organizations have to co-ordinate with the Israeli government to operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any relief supplies from entering the territory at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in very limited supply and medical facilities were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The NGO ActionAid warned that a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" was imminent.

Israel’s defence minister announced on April 16 that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time almost 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 the month of May, Israel initiated a ground offensive named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the regions affected by evacuation directives and limitations have been extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The first phase of the operation focused on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in the month of August Israel revealed intentions to seize and control the entire city of Gaza itself - which it has referred to as the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most crowded part of the territory before the war, with 775,000 residents living there.

Those who remained there were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has continued to carry out deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.

Numerous residents have thus far evacuated the city of Gaza, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

But many more thousands remain there in dire humanitarian conditions, with medical and vital services collapsing.

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