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Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s bombing campaign and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities as reported by the Hamas-run health ministry, nearly the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN states the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation came in response to Hamas’ unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 more were taken hostage.

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

A peace plan has been put forward by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - 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 sealed frontiers with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is inhabited by more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are believed 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 Israeli forces have perpetrated genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israeli officials have dismissed the commission’s report, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were concealed within the non-combatant residents. Hamas denied this.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the border, was among the initial locations hit by Israeli strikes. 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 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 a large portion of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its bombing of 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 damaged or destroyed.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an approximately 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, according to the Gaza health authority.

And the devastation has continued since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - encompassing 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, Hamas - which is classified as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions affiliated with it have been involved 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, entire districts have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and agricultural land where greenhouses previously existed have been reduced to sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli troops.

Israel says Hamas uses civilian buildings such as hospitals for armed operations - but Hamas denies that.

Before the war, 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, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to abandon their residences, as per the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the truce was implemented after 15 months, an estimated 1.9m people had been forcibly relocated - they continue to be unable to go back.

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

Leaflet drops by the Israeli army warned people to leave ahead of operations in the area. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as prohibited areas - where restrictions are in place - or making them subject to displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

At first 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 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 diverting it. Limited aid is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is insufficient.

By the beginning of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of medications and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on 16 April that Israel would establish protected areas in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by limitations imposed by Israel - encompassing 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 land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are believed to be living - and "complete the defeat" 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, as per the UN.

The first phase of the operation concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in the month of August Israel announced plans to capture and occupy the entire city of Gaza 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.

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 continued to carry out deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

Numerous residents have so far fled Gaza City, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

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

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