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24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-run health ministry, almost the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN states most homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The military operation 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.

Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the militant organization, which is committed to the elimination of Israel and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal has been put forward by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - living and deceased - and to hand over control of Gaza to independent Palestinian experts, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to relinquishing any future political role in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - about a quarter of the size of London - surrounded on three sides by closed borders with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Extent of Damage

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

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israeli forces have perpetrated genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israeli officials have dismissed the findings of the commission, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has become in large parts uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation first targeted 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 border, was among the initial locations struck by airstrikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and additional cities in the north and instructed residents to move south of the Wadi Gaza river before it launched its ground invasion at the conclusion of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted 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 southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a truce was announced in early 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been harmed, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, as per the Gaza health authority.

And the devastation has persisted since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of 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

During the conflict, Hamas - which is designated as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions allied to it have been engaged 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.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods 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 heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize non-military structures such as hospitals for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

Prior to the conflict, 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 the city of Gaza.

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 estimated 1.9m people had been internally displaced - 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 relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to leave a series of "safe zones" in the south.

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

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

Humanitarian organizations 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 permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is nowhere near enough.

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 hospitals 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 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 - Hamas has insisted that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - encompassing the majority of 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 the month of May, Israel initiated a ground offensive named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, according to the UN.

The first phase of the campaign concentrated on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in the month of 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 densely populated part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 residents residing there.

Individuals who stayed behind were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has persisted in conducting deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have so far fled Gaza City, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

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

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including