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24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-run health ministry, almost the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN says most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation came in response to Hamas's unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Israel says it is attempting to dismantle 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 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 free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to disarmament or to giving up any future political role in the leadership of Gaza.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - about a quarter of the size of London - bordered 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 over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

Over nine out of ten residences are believed to be destroyed or damaged; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and experts supported by the UN say there is starvation in Gaza City.

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

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

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were concealed within the non-combatant residents. Hamas denied this.

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 sustained severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and other urban centres 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.

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments on the urban areas in the south 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 much of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its airstrikes on 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 damaged or destroyed.

By the time a truce was announced in January 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been harmed, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to Gaza's health ministry.

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

Humanitarian Catastrophe

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is classified as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and other armed groups allied to it have been involved in intense battles against Israeli forces 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 razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize civilian buildings such as hospitals for armed operations - but Hamas denies that.

Prior to the conflict, the majority of Gaza’s population lived in its four main cities - Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Deir al-Balah, in the centre, and Gaza City.

Within 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had forced nearly half to abandon their residences, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the ceasefire was declared after 15 months, an estimated 1.9m people had been internally displaced - they continue to be unable to go back.

Households have relocated repeatedly as Israel changed the emphasis of their campaign, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to evacuate a series of "evacuation 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 alerts.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as prohibited areas - where restrictions are in place - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

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 co-ordinate with the Israeli authorities 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 start of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, most fresh vegetables were in very limited supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister announced on April 16 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 permanent ceasefire.

During that period nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - including most of the North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the entire Rafah governorate in the south, as reported by the UN.

And in May, Israel launched a ground offensive named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the militant organization.

From that point onward the areas covered 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 objectives within northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in the month of August Israel announced plans 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 living there.

Those who remained there were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has continued to carry out deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and dangerous.

Numerous residents have thus far evacuated Gaza City, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

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

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including