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Two years of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion 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 states 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 approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Israel says it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been put forward by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to release all captives - living and deceased - and to transfer Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to relinquishing any political involvement in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - roughly one-fourth the area of London - bordered on three sides by closed borders with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is inhabited by more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are believed 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 Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israeli officials have dismissed the findings of the commission, labeling it as "distorted and false".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has become in large parts unlivable.

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it said militants were concealed within the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the border, was one of the first areas hit by Israeli strikes. It sustained severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and additional cities in the north and instructed residents to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza river before it launched its ground invasion at the end of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted 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 bombing of southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by the start of 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 damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to Gaza's health ministry.

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

Humanitarian Crisis

During the conflict, the militant group - which is classified as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and other armed groups allied to it have been engaged in intense battles against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

However, within Gaza, entire districts have been razed to the ground, medical facilities and places of worship 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 Hamas uses civilian buildings such as hospitals for military purposes - but the group denies these claims.

Before the war, the majority of Gaza’s population lived in its four main cities - Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Deir al-Balah city, in the centre, and Gaza City.

In just 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to leave their homes, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

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

Households have relocated repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to evacuate a number 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 every Israeli attack are preceded by alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

After the truce was terminated, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

At first the orders to evacuate covered 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 co-ordinate with the Israeli authorities to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was diverting it. Limited aid is now permitted to enter, although aid agencies still say it is insufficient.

By the start of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and hospitals were limiting distribution of painkillers and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister declared on April 16 that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier 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.

During that period nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - encompassing most of the 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 land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the militant organization.

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

The first phase of the operation concentrated on objectives within northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in the month of August Israel announced plans 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.

Those who remained there 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 continued to carry out deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

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

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