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24 months of fighting have devastated Gaza.

The Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-run health ministry, almost the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN states most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The offensive was launched after Hamas's unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 more were taken hostage.

Israel says it is trying to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the Islamist group, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to transfer Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to disarmament or to giving up 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 closed borders with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is home to over two million residents.

Extent of Damage

Over nine out of ten residences 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 Israeli officials have dismissed the findings of the commission, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has become in large parts uninhabitable.

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation 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 border, was among the initial locations struck by Israeli strikes. It sustained heavy damage.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and other urban centres in the north and instructed residents to move south of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive at the end of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments on the urban areas in the south 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 much of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its airstrikes on the southern and central regions 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 estimated 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to the Gaza health authority.

And the devastation has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in the month of March - including in 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 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.

But in Gaza, entire districts have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize non-military structures such as medical centers for military purposes - but the group denies these claims.

Before the war, the majority of Gaza’s population lived in its four main cities - Khan Younis and Rafah 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 leave their homes, as per the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

And by the time the truce was implemented after 15 months, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been internally displaced - they continue to be unable to go back.

Families have moved multiple times as Israel changed the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to move south of Wadi Gaza river, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to evacuate a series of "safe zones" in the south.

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

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

Humanitarian organizations have to co-ordinate with the Israeli authorities to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza at the beginning of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although relief groups still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of painkillers and antibiotics.

The NGO ActionAid warned that a "renewed period of hunger and dehydration" was imminent.

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on April 16 that Israel would set up protected areas in Gaza to create a protective barrier to protect Israeli communities even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

During that period 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 entire Rafah governorate in the south, as reported by the UN.

And in May, Israel launched a land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of whom are believed to be living - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the regions affected by displacement orders and other restrictions have been extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The first phase of the campaign focused on objectives within Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza 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 prior to the conflict, with 775,000 residents living there.

Individuals who stayed behind were instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has persisted in conducting lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have so far fled the city of Gaza, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

But hundreds of thousands more remain there in severe living conditions, with health and other essential services failing.

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