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24 months of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli bombing campaign and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health ministry, almost the entire population has been displaced, and the UN says most homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The military operation came in response to Hamas's unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were slain and 251 others were taken hostage.

Israeli authorities claim it is attempting to dismantle the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal has been put forward by American President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to transfer control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to disarmament or to giving up 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 Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is home to over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

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

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

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into unlivable.

How the Destruction Spread

Israel's campaign first targeted northern Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were hiding among the civilian population. The group refuted these allegations.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was one of the first areas hit by airstrikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted 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 end of October 2023.

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

Israel intensified its airstrikes on southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a truce was announced in January 2025 an estimated 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been harmed, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, as per Gaza's health ministry.

And the devastation has continued since Israel ended the ceasefire in the month of March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN estimates over 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is classified as a terrorist organisation by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and other armed groups affiliated with it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

But in Gaza, entire districts have been completely demolished, medical facilities and places of worship have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been turned into debris and dust by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says Hamas uses civilian buildings such as hospitals for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

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

In just 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, as per 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 continue to be unable to go back.

Families have moved repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to move south 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 army alerted residents to leave ahead of operations in the area. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by warnings.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or imposing displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to evacuate entirely.

At first the evacuation orders covered two areas - 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 humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was diverting it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the beginning of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been shut down, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister announced on 16 April that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - encompassing most of the 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 aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of whom are believed to be living - and "complete the defeat" of the militant organization.

Since then the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been extended to cover 82% of Gaza, according to the UN.

The initial stage 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 all of Gaza City itself - which it has referred to as the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

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

Those who remained there were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and dangerous.

Numerous residents have so far fled 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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