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24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli bombing campaign and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities as reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority, nearly the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN says the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The offensive was launched after Hamas’ unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others were captured.

Israeli authorities claim it is attempting to dismantle the armed and administrative capacities of the militant organization, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - alive and dead - and to transfer Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms or to relinquishing 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 - surrounded 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 inhabited by over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

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

A UN investigative commission says Israeli forces have perpetrated acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israel has rejected the commission’s report, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has turned into unlivable.

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it said militants were hiding among the non-combatant residents. Hamas denied this.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was one of the first areas struck by airstrikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and other urban centres in the north and instructed residents to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive at the conclusion of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted aerial bombardments on the southern cities 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 much of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its bombing of 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 destroyed or damaged.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an estimated 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, 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 persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN calculates over 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

During the conflict, the militant group - which is designated as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions affiliated with it have been involved in intense battles 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 destroyed and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli troops.

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

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

In just 10 days of October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the truce was implemented after 15 months, an estimated 1.9m people had been forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.

Families have moved repeatedly as Israel changed the focus of its operation, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward 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 army warned people to evacuate before military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

After the truce was terminated, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where restrictions are in place - or making them subject to evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

At first the evacuation orders 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 government to operate in 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. Limited aid is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is insufficient.

By the beginning of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been shut down, most fresh vegetables were in very limited supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on April 16 that Israel would establish protected areas in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to protect Israeli communities following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was impacted by Israeli restrictions - encompassing 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 land operation named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the militant organization.

Since then the areas covered by evacuation directives and limitations have been extended to cover 82% of Gaza, as per the UN.

The first phase of the campaign concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel revealed intentions to capture and occupy 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 prior to the conflict, with 775,000 residents residing there.

Those who remained there were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has classified 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 so far fled Gaza City, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

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

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including