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24 months of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-controlled health authority, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN states the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

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

Israel says it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is committed to the elimination of Israel and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to release all captives - alive and dead - and to hand over control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms or to relinquishing any political involvement 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 coast 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 damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have broken down; and experts supported by the UN say there is famine in Gaza City.

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israeli forces have perpetrated acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected 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

The Israeli operation first targeted northern Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was among the initial locations struck by airstrikes. It sustained 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 launched its ground invasion at the conclusion of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted air strikes on the southern cities which numerous Gaza residents from the north were fleeing towards. By the end of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did much of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its airstrikes on the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 more than half of Gaza's buildings had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a truce was announced in January 2025 an estimated 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per Gaza's health ministry.

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

Humanitarian Catastrophe

Throughout the war, Hamas - which is classified as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions allied to it have been involved in fierce combat against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, especially in the first months of the war.

But in Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

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

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

In just 10 days of 7 October 2023, the Israeli military campaign had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

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

Families have moved repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and subsequently directing people to leave a number of "safe zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military warned people to leave ahead of 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 more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or imposing displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

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.

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

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the start 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 start of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister declared 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 - Hamas has insisted that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - encompassing the majority of North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the entire Rafah governorate in the south, as reported by the UN.

And in the month of May, Israel initiated a land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the militant organization.

Since then the areas covered by evacuation directives and limitations have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, according to the UN.

The first phase of the campaign focused on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in the month of August Israel revealed intentions to capture and occupy the entire city of Gaza 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 residents residing there.

Individuals who stayed behind were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has persisted in conducting lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have so far fled Gaza City, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

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

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including