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24 months of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, nearly the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN says most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation was launched after Hamas’ unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were slain and 251 others were taken hostage.

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

A peace plan has been proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - alive and dead - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to independent Palestinian experts, 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 - roughly one-fourth the area of London - surrounded on three sides by sealed frontiers with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have broken down; and experts supported by the UN say there is starvation in Gaza City.

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israeli forces have perpetrated genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israel has rejected the commission’s report, labeling it as "distorted and false".

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

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign 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, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was among the initial locations struck by Israeli strikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and additional cities in the north and instructed residents 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 numerous Gaza residents from the north were escaping to. 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 bombing of southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 more than half of Gaza's buildings had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an estimated 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip 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 calculates more than 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is classified as a terrorist organisation by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions affiliated with it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

But in Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli troops.

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, in the centre, and Gaza City.

In just 10 days of October 7, 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 15 months later, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been internally displaced - they remain unable to return home.

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

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli army alerted residents to evacuate before operations in the area. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by warnings.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

After the truce was terminated, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or imposing displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to leave completely.

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 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 - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although relief groups still say it is insufficient.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been shut down, most fresh vegetables were in very limited 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 announced on 16 April that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns 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 impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - encompassing 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 the month of May, Israel launched a land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would aim to secure the release of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of which 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 concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in the month of August Israel revealed intentions to seize and control 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 people living 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 deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

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

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

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including