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Two years of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

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

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

Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the militant organization, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal has been put forward by American 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 control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to giving up any future political role in the leadership of Gaza.

Gaza is merely 41km in length and 10km in width - about a quarter of the size of London - surrounded on three sides by closed borders with Israel and Egypt 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

Over nine out of ten residences are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; 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 - even though Israeli officials have dismissed the findings of the commission, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has become in large parts uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were concealed within the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was one of the first areas struck 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 conclusion of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching air strikes on the southern cities which hundreds of thousands of Gazans 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.

Israeli forces escalated its airstrikes on southern and central Gaza at the beginning of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 over 50% of structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a truce was announced in early 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been harmed, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, according to the Gaza health authority.

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

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, the militant group - which is designated as a terrorist organisation by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions allied to it have been involved in fierce combat 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, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses previously existed have been reduced to sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says Hamas uses non-military structures such as hospitals for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

Prior to the conflict, 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 Gaza City.

Within 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

And by the time the truce was implemented 15 months later, an estimated 1.9m people had been internally displaced - they remain unable to return home.

Families have moved repeatedly as Israel changed 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 later ordering 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 every Israeli attack are preceded by warnings.

Restricted Areas Grow

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or imposing displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to leave completely.

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

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the beginning of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Restricted assistance is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the beginning of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been shut down, most fresh vegetables were in very limited supply and medical facilities were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The humanitarian organization ActionAid warned that a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" loomed.

Israel’s defence minister declared on April 16 that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” 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.

At the time almost 70% of Gaza was impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - 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 land operation named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the militant organization.

Since then the regions affected by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82% of Gaza, as per the UN.

The first phase of the campaign focused on objectives within 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 called the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most densely populated part of the territory before the war, 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 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.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have so far fled Gaza City, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

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

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