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Two years of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities as reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The military operation was launched after Hamas's unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were slain and 251 more were taken hostage.

Israel says it is attempting to dismantle 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 ceasefire proposal has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - living and deceased - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to independent Palestinian experts, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to giving up any political involvement in the leadership of Gaza.

Gaza is merely 41km in length and 10km in width - about a quarter of the size of London - bordered on three sides by sealed frontiers with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

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

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israeli officials have dismissed the commission’s report, describing it as "distorted and false".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it said militants were hiding among the non-combatant residents. 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 Israeli strikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and other urban centres in the north and ordered civilians to move south 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 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 a large portion of the north.

Israel intensified its bombing of the southern and central regions at the start of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 over 50% of Gaza's buildings had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a truce was announced in early 2025 an estimated 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, as per the Gaza health authority.

And the devastation has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire 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 damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, the militant group - which is classified as a terrorist organisation by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions allied to it have been involved in fierce combat against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

But in Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, medical facilities and places of worship have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses previously existed have been reduced to sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize non-military structures such as hospitals for military purposes - but the group denies these claims.

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

Within 10 days of October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

And by the time the ceasefire was declared 15 months later, an estimated 1.9m people had been internally displaced - they remain unable to return home.

Households have relocated multiple times as Israel changed the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a series of "safe zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli army warned people to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by alerts.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as no-go zones - where restrictions are in place - or making them subject to evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to leave completely.

Initially the evacuation orders 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 operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any relief supplies from entering Gaza at the start of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Restricted assistance is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is insufficient.

By the beginning of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in very limited 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.

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on April 16 that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - the group has demanded 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 ground offensive named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

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

The first phase of the campaign concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel announced plans to seize and control all of Gaza City 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 people 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” - even though it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have thus far evacuated Gaza City, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

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

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including