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24 months of conflict have devastated Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health ministry, almost the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The military operation came in response to Hamas’ unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 more were captured.

Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the Islamist group, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. The group has consented to free all remaining hostages - 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 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 Israel imposes a blockade. It is inhabited by more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have broken down; 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 Israel has rejected the findings of the commission, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

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

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it said militants were concealed within the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

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

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and other urban centres 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.

But Israel was also launching air strikes on the southern cities which hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were fleeing towards. By the end 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 the southern and central regions at the start of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 over 50% of Gaza's buildings had been damaged or destroyed.

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. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, as per Gaza's health ministry.

And the destruction has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN calculates over 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is designated as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions affiliated with it have been involved in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for demolitions by Israeli troops.

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

Prior to the conflict, 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 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to leave their homes, as per the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the truce was implemented after 15 months, an estimated 1.9m people had been forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.

Families have moved repeatedly as Israel changed 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 subsequently directing people to evacuate a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets 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

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as prohibited areas - where restrictions are in place - or making them subject to displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

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

Aid agencies have to co-ordinate with the Israeli government to work within the "no-go" areas.

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

By the beginning of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been shut down, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of medications and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister announced on April 16 that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period nearly 70% of Gaza was impacted by Israeli restrictions - including the majority of North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the entire Rafah governorate in the south, according to the UN.

And in May, Israel initiated a land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" 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 Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel revealed intentions 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 densely populated part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 people residing there.

Individuals who stayed behind were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.

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

But many more thousands remain there in dire humanitarian conditions, with medical and vital services collapsing.

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including