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24 months of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority, nearly the entire population has been forced to move, and the UN says most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The offensive was launched after Hamas’ unprecedented assault across the border 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 Islamist group, which is committed to the elimination of Israel and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to release all captives - alive and dead - and to hand over control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to relinquishing any future political role in Gaza’s leadership.

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 Egypt and Israel 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.

Extent of Damage

More than 90% of homes are believed to be damaged or destroyed; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have collapsed; and UN-backed experts say there is famine in Gaza City.

A UN investigative commission says Israel has committed acts of 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 unlivable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign first targeted northern Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were concealed within the civilian population. The group refuted these allegations.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was one of the first areas hit by Israeli strikes. It experienced heavy damage.

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 initiated its land offensive at the end of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments on the southern cities which hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were fleeing towards. 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 the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 over 50% of structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a truce was announced in January 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza 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 destruction has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN estimates over 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

Throughout the war, Hamas - which is designated as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions allied to it have been involved 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.

But in Gaza, entire districts have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize civilian buildings such as medical centers for armed operations - but the group denies these claims.

Before the war, most of Gaza's 2.1 million people lived in its primary urban centers - Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Deir al-Balah city, in the centre, and Gaza City.

In just 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, as per the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

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

Households have relocated multiple times as Israeli forces shifted the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military alerted residents to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by warnings.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

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 whole border.

Aid agencies have to coordinate 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 - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although relief groups still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the beginning of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been closed, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on April 16 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 troops must pull out from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - including most of the North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the entire Rafah governorate in the south, as reported by the UN.

And in May, Israel initiated a land operation named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

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 operation focused on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in 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 crowded part of the territory before the war, with 775,000 residents living there.

Those who remained there 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 lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

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

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

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including