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Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

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

Israel says it is attempting to dismantle the armed and administrative capacities of the militant organization, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been put forward by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to hand over control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to disarmament or to relinquishing any future political role in the leadership of Gaza.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - roughly one-fourth the area of London - surrounded on three sides by sealed frontiers with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is inhabited by over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; 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 Israeli forces have perpetrated genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israel has rejected the findings of the commission, describing it as "distorted and false".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it claimed militants were concealed within the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the frontier, was among the initial locations hit by airstrikes. It sustained heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and other urban centres in the north and ordered civilians to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive at the end of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted 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 bombing of southern and central Gaza at the beginning of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 over 50% of structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in January 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been harmed, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to the Gaza health authority.

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

Humanitarian Catastrophe

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is designated as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and other armed groups affiliated with it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, especially in the first months of the war.

But in Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses previously existed have been reduced to debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli troops.

Israel says Hamas uses non-military structures 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 city, in the centre, and the city of Gaza.

In just 10 days of October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive had compelled almost 50% to leave their homes, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

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

Households have relocated repeatedly as Israel changed the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to leave a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

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

Expansion of Restricted Zones

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as prohibited areas - where restrictions are in place - or imposing displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to evacuate entirely.

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

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

Israel had also blocked any relief supplies from entering Gaza at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was diverting it. Limited aid is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is insufficient.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN 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" loomed.

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on April 16 that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to protect Israeli communities even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period nearly 70% of Gaza was impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - 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 launched a ground offensive named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

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

The first phase of the campaign focused on objectives within northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in 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 before the war, with 775,000 people residing 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” - despite the fact that it has persisted in conducting deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

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

But hundreds of thousands more continue to stay in dire humanitarian conditions, with medical and vital services collapsing.

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