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Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli bombing campaign and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, almost the entire population has been forced to move, and the UN states the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The offensive 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 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 governing Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal has been proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. The group has consented to release all captives - alive and dead - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to independent Palestinian experts, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to relinquishing 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 Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

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

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

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

How the Destruction Spread

Israel's campaign first targeted northern Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were concealed within the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the frontier, was one of the first areas hit by Israeli strikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted 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 aerial bombardments on the southern cities which hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were fleeing towards. 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 airstrikes on southern and central Gaza at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of Gaza's buildings had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in January 2025 an estimated 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been harmed, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, as per Gaza's health ministry.

And the devastation has continued since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN estimates over 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

During the conflict, Hamas - which is designated as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and other armed groups allied to it have been involved in fierce combat against Israeli troops 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 obliterated and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

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

Prior to the conflict, 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 the city of Gaza.

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

And by the time the ceasefire was declared 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 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 evacuate a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military warned people to evacuate before 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 prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to evacuate entirely.

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

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the start of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Limited aid 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 closed, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and hospitals were limiting distribution of medications and antibiotics.

The NGO ActionAid cautioned that a "renewed period of hunger and dehydration" loomed.

Israel’s defence minister announced on 16 April that Israel would set up protected areas in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time almost 70% of Gaza was impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - 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 May, Israel launched a land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of which are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the militant organization.

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

The initial stage of the campaign focused on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in 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 before the war, with 775,000 residents living there.

Individuals who stayed behind were instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has persisted in conducting deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

Numerous residents have thus far evacuated the city of Gaza, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

But hundreds of thousands more continue to stay in dire humanitarian conditions, with health and other essential services failing.

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