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Two years of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s bombing campaign and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-run health ministry, almost the entire population has been displaced, and the UN states 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 approximately 1,200 individuals were slain and 251 others were captured.

Israel says it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the militant organization, 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 Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - living and deceased - and to transfer control of Gaza to independent Palestinian experts, but it has refused to agree to disarmament or to relinquishing any political involvement in the leadership of Gaza.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - roughly one-fourth the area of London - bordered on three sides by closed borders with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed experts say there is starvation in Gaza City.

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the commission’s report, describing it as "distorted and false".

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

How the Destruction Spread

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

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the frontier, was one of the first areas struck by airstrikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and additional cities in the north and ordered civilians to move south of the Wadi Gaza river before it launched its ground invasion at the conclusion 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 Gaza's buildings had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a truce was announced in early 2025 an approximately 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 fatally wounded, as per the Gaza health authority.

And the destruction has persisted since the truce was terminated by Israel 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 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 allied to it have been engaged in intense battles against Israeli forces 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 farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state militants utilize non-military structures such as medical centers for armed operations - but the group denies these claims.

Prior to the conflict, most of Gaza's 2.1 million people lived in its four main cities - Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Deir al-Balah, in the centre, and the city of Gaza.

Within 10 days of 7 October 2023, the Israeli military campaign had forced nearly half to abandon their residences, as per 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 continue to be unable to go back.

Families have moved multiple times as Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to leave a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli army alerted residents to leave ahead of operations in the area. However, not all Israeli strikes 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 making them subject to evacuation directives, meaning residents have been instructed to leave completely.

Initially the orders to evacuate covered two areas - 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 authorities to work within the "no-go" areas.

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

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

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

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on 16 April that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was impacted by Israeli restrictions - encompassing most of the North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the entire Rafah governorate in the south, according to the UN.

And in the month of May, Israel initiated a land operation named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the militant organization.

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

The first phase of the campaign concentrated on objectives within Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza 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 crowded 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” - even though it has persisted in conducting lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have thus far evacuated Gaza City, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

But many more thousands remain there in dire humanitarian conditions, with health and other essential services failing.

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