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24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s bombing campaign and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-run health ministry, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

The offensive was launched after Hamas's unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others 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 governing Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal 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 - roughly one-fourth the area of London - bordered on three sides by sealed frontiers with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to over two million residents.

Extent of Damage

More than 90% of homes are believed to be destroyed or damaged; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have collapsed; and UN-backed experts say there is famine 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 findings of the commission, labeling it as "distorted and false".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has turned into 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, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was one of the first areas hit by airstrikes. It experienced 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 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 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 launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of Gaza's buildings 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 suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, according to the Gaza health authority.

And the destruction has persisted since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN estimates more than 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, Hamas - which is designated as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and other armed groups affiliated with it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli troops 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 razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and agricultural land where greenhouses previously existed have been reduced to sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli troops.

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

Before the war, the majority of Gaza’s population 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 7 October 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 15 months later, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been forcibly relocated - they continue to be unable to go back.

Families have moved multiple times as Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, initially telling people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and later ordering people to leave a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli army alerted residents to evacuate before operations in the area. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as prohibited areas - where restrictions are in place - or imposing displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to leave completely.

At first the evacuation orders covered two areas - in the North Gaza and Khan Younis governorates - with a “no-go” area in place along the whole border.

Humanitarian organizations have to coordinate with the Israeli government to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although relief groups still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been closed, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and hospitals 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 announced on 16 April that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to protect Israeli communities even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was affected 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, as reported by the UN.

And in May, Israel launched a ground offensive named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to secure the release of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the areas covered by evacuation directives and limitations have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The first phase of the operation focused on targets in 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 crowded part of the territory before the war, with 775,000 residents living there.

Those who remained there were instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part 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-backed body.

But many more thousands continue to stay in severe living conditions, with health and other essential services collapsing.

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