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Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-run health ministry, nearly the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation was launched after Hamas’ unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were slain and 251 more were captured.

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. The group has consented to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to hand over Gaza’s governance 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 - about a quarter of the size of London - bordered 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 inhabited by over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are estimated 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 UN investigative commission says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the findings of the commission, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

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

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it claimed militants were hiding among the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was one of the first areas struck by airstrikes. It sustained heavy damage.

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 aerial bombardments on the southern cities 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.

Israel intensified its bombing of 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 damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per the Gaza health authority.

And the destruction has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in the month of March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN estimates over 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

During the conflict, Hamas - which is classified as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - 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, especially in the first months of the war.

However, within Gaza, entire districts have been completely demolished, medical facilities and places of worship have been destroyed and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been turned into sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize 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 - Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Deir al-Balah city, in the centre, and the city of Gaza.

Within 10 days of October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to leave their homes, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the ceasefire was declared 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 Israel changed the focus of its operation, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and later ordering people to evacuate a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military warned people to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes 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 imposing evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

Initially the orders to evacuate applied to two regions - in the North Gaza and Khan Younis governorates - with a “no-go” area in place along the whole border.

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 start of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

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 medical facilities were limiting distribution of medications and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister declared on 16 April that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to protect Israeli communities following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - 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 May, Israel launched a ground offensive named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82% of Gaza, according to 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 all of Gaza City 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 southwestern part 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 overpopulated and dangerous.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have so far fled the city of Gaza, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

But many more thousands remain there in severe living conditions, with medical and vital services failing.

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