🔗 Share this article

Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-controlled health authority, nearly the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN states the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

The offensive came in response to Hamas's unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were slain and 251 more were captured.

Israel says it is attempting to dismantle the armed and administrative capacities of the militant organization, which is committed to the elimination of Israel and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s 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 control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to disarmament or to relinquishing any political involvement 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 Sea to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is inhabited by over two million residents.

Extent of Damage

Over nine out of ten residences are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have collapsed; and experts supported by the UN say there is famine in Gaza City.

A UN investigative commission says Israeli forces have perpetrated genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the commission’s report, labeling it as "distorted and false".

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

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation initially focused on northern Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were concealed within the civilian population. The group refuted these allegations.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was one of the first areas hit by airstrikes. It sustained severe destruction.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted 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 aerial bombardments on the urban areas in the south 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 much of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its airstrikes on the southern and central regions at the start of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged.

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

And the destruction has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN calculates 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 classified as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions allied to it have been engaged in intense battles against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

But in Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli troops.

Israeli authorities state Hamas uses civilian buildings such as medical centers for armed operations - but Hamas denies that.

Prior to the conflict, the majority of Gaza’s population lived in its primary urban centers - Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Deir al-Balah city, in the centre, and the city of Gaza.

In just 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had compelled almost 50% to leave their homes, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

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, initially telling people in the north to move south of Wadi Gaza river, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

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

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 making them subject to displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to leave completely.

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 government to operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any relief supplies from entering Gaza at the beginning of March - accusing Hamas of commandeering it. Restricted assistance is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short 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 April 16 that Israel would establish protected areas 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 permanent ceasefire.

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 entire Rafah governorate in the south, as reported by the UN.

And in the month of May, Israel launched a land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to secure the release of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been extended to cover 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 revealed intentions to capture and occupy 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 residents residing there.

Individuals who stayed behind were instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

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

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

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including