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Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities as reported by the Hamas-run health authority, nearly the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN says most homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The military operation was launched after Hamas’ unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were slain and 251 more were taken hostage.

Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the militant organization, 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 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - alive and dead - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to disarmament or to giving up any political involvement 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 coast to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is inhabited by more than 2 million people.

Extent of Damage

More than 90% of homes are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have broken down; and experts supported by the UN say there is famine in Gaza City.

A UN investigative commission says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the findings of the commission, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

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

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were concealed within the civilian population. The group refuted these allegations.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the frontier, was among the initial locations hit by airstrikes. It sustained severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb 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 air strikes on the urban areas in the south 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.

Israel intensified its bombing of the southern and central regions at the start of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 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 structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to the Gaza health authority.

And the devastation has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN calculates more than 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, the militant group - which is classified as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions allied to it have been involved in fierce combat against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles 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 obliterated and farmland where greenhouses previously existed have been turned into debris and dust 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 four main cities - Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Deir al-Balah, in the centre, and Gaza City.

In just 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had forced nearly half to leave their homes, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the truce was implemented after 15 months, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been internally displaced - they continue to be unable to go back.

Households have relocated repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted the focus of its operation, initially telling people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and subsequently directing people to leave a number of "safe 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

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 residents have been instructed to leave completely.

Initially the evacuation orders applied to 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 government to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any relief supplies from entering the territory at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is insufficient.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been closed, the majority of fresh produce were in very limited supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The NGO ActionAid cautioned that a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" was imminent.

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on 16 April that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

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

And in the month of May, Israel initiated a ground offensive named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would aim to secure the release of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The first phase of the operation focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah 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 densely populated part of the territory before the war, with 775,000 residents 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” - despite the fact that it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.

Numerous 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 collapsing.

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including