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Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-run health authority, almost the entire population has been displaced, and the UN says most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

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

Israel says 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 ceasefire proposal has been proposed 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 - living and deceased - and to transfer control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms or to relinquishing any future political role in the leadership of Gaza.

Gaza is merely 41km in length and 10km in width - roughly one-fourth the area 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 home to over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

Over nine out of ten residences are believed to be destroyed or damaged; 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 Israel has committed acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the commission’s report, labeling it as "distorted and false".

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

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation initially focused on northern Gaza - where it said militants were hiding among 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 hit by airstrikes. It sustained heavy damage.

Israel continued to bomb 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 hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were fleeing towards. By the close of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did a large portion of the north.

Israel intensified its airstrikes on southern and central Gaza at the beginning 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 truce was announced in early 2025 an approximately 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been harmed, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per Gaza's health ministry.

And the devastation 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

During the conflict, Hamas - which is designated as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions affiliated with it have been engaged in intense battles against Israeli troops 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, medical facilities and places of worship have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into debris and dust by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says Hamas uses civilian buildings such as hospitals for military purposes - but the group denies these claims.

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 city, in the centre, and Gaza City.

In just 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had forced nearly half to leave their homes, according to 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 repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted the focus of its operation, initially telling people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to leave a number of "safe zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli army warned people to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by warnings.

Restricted Areas Grow

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning residents have been instructed to leave completely.

Initially the evacuation orders applied to 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 authorities to operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any relief supplies from entering Gaza at the start of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is insufficient.

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

The NGO ActionAid cautioned that a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" loomed.

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on 16 April that Israel would set up protected areas in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to protect Israeli communities following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted 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 whole of the Rafah governorate in the south, according to the UN.

And in 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 remaining hostages - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward 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 operation focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in the month of August Israel announced plans to seize and control all of Gaza City itself - which it has called the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most crowded part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 people residing there.

Individuals who stayed behind 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 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-backed body.

But many more thousands remain there in dire humanitarian conditions, with medical and vital services collapsing.

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