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24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s bombing campaign and ground invasion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities as reported by the Hamas-controlled health ministry, almost the entire population has been forced to move, and the UN says most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The offensive came in response to Hamas's unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others were captured.

Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been put forward by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - alive and dead - and to hand over control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to relinquishing 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 - bordered on three sides by closed borders with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

Over nine out of ten residences are believed to be destroyed or damaged; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have broken down; and UN-backed experts say there is starvation in Gaza City.

A UN investigative commission says Israeli forces have perpetrated acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the commission’s report, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign initially focused on northern Gaza - where it claimed militants were concealed within the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

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

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and additional cities in the north and instructed residents to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive at the end of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted air strikes 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.

Israeli forces escalated its bombing of southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of Gaza's buildings had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an estimated 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 Gaza's health ministry.

And the devastation has continued since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN estimates over 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is classified as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and other armed groups allied to it have been involved in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses previously existed have been turned into debris and dust by armored vehicles and machinery used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state Hamas uses non-military structures such as medical centers 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 October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive 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 Israel changed the focus of its operation, 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 evacuate a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli army alerted residents 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 more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to leave completely.

Initially the orders to evacuate applied to 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 co-ordinate 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 - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Restricted assistance is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is insufficient.

By the beginning of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been shut down, most fresh vegetables were in very limited supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of painkillers and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on April 16 that Israel would establish protected areas in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - including the majority of 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 the Prime Minister stated would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, according to the UN.

The initial stage of the campaign concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel announced plans 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 prior to the conflict, with 775,000 residents living there.

Individuals who stayed behind were instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has continued to carry out deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

Numerous residents have thus far evacuated the city of Gaza, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

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

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