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Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities according to the Hamas-run health ministry, nearly the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN states the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

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

Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the militant organization, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to hand over Gaza’s governance 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 - surrounded 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 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 broken down; and UN-backed experts say there is famine in Gaza City.

A UN investigative commission says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the findings of the commission, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

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

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation initially focused on northern Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were hiding among the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the border, was among the initial locations hit by airstrikes. It experienced severe destruction.

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

Simultaneously, Israel conducted 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 the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 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 damaged, 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 continued since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN calculates over 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is designated as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions 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, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state Hamas uses civilian buildings such as medical centers for armed operations - but Hamas denies that.

Before the war, most of Gaza's 2.1 million people 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 7 October 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 15 months later, an estimated 1.9m people had been internally displaced - they continue to be unable to go back.

Families have moved multiple times as Israeli forces shifted the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of Wadi Gaza river, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a number of "safe zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli army alerted residents to evacuate before military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by warnings.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

At first the orders to evacuate covered 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 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 - accusing Hamas of commandeering it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although relief groups still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the beginning of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, the majority of fresh produce were in very limited supply and medical facilities were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The NGO ActionAid cautioned that a "renewed period of hunger and dehydration" loomed.

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on April 16 that Israel would establish protected areas 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 impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - including most of the North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the whole of the Rafah governorate in the south, according to 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 believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" 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 initial stage of the campaign focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in the month of August Israel announced plans to capture and occupy all of Gaza City 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 people residing there.

Those who remained there were instructed to relocate 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 lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and dangerous.

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

But many more thousands continue to stay in severe living conditions, with health and other essential services collapsing.

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