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24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s bombing campaign and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-controlled health authority, almost the entire population has been forced to move, and the UN says most homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.

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

Israeli authorities claim it is attempting to dismantle the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel and has been in control of 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. The group has consented to release all captives - living and deceased - and to transfer Gaza’s governance to independent Palestinian experts, but it has not committed 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 Egypt and Israel 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 destroyed or damaged; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have broken down; and experts supported by the UN 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 visual guide shows how Gaza has become in large parts uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were concealed within 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 severe destruction.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and other urban centres 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 southern cities which numerous Gaza residents from the north were escaping to. By the end of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did a large portion of the north.

Israel intensified its bombing of southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 over 50% of Gaza's buildings had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per the Gaza health authority.

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

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, Hamas - 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 forces on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, especially in the first months of the war.

However, within Gaza, entire districts have been razed to the ground, medical facilities and places of worship have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses previously existed have been reduced to debris and dust by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state militants utilize civilian buildings such as hospitals for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

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

In just 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to leave their homes, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

And by the time the ceasefire was declared after 15 months, an estimated 1.9m people 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 "evacuation zones" in the south.

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

Expansion of Restricted Zones

After the truce was terminated, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to leave completely.

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.

Aid agencies have to coordinate with the Israeli government to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the start of March - alleging that Hamas was diverting it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is insufficient.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been closed, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The humanitarian organization ActionAid cautioned that a "renewed period of hunger and dehydration" was imminent.

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on April 16 that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to protect Israeli communities following the conclusion of hostilities - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was affected 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 launched a land operation named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The initial stage of the operation focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in August Israel revealed intentions to capture and occupy all of Gaza City 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 residents living there.

Those who remained there were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has persisted in conducting deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.

Numerous residents have so far fled Gaza City, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

But hundreds of thousands more continue to stay in severe living conditions, with health and other essential services failing.

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