🔗 Share this article

24 months of fighting have devastated Gaza.

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

The offensive was launched after Hamas's unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 more were taken hostage.

Israel says it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - alive and dead - and to hand over control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to relinquishing any political involvement in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is merely 41km in length and 10km in width - roughly one-fourth the area of London - surrounded 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 inhabited by over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

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

A United Nations commission of inquiry 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 turned into uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation initially focused on northern Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the non-combatant residents. Hamas denied this.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the border, was among the initial locations hit by airstrikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and other urban centres in the north and ordered civilians to move south of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive 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 southern and central Gaza at the beginning of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 more than half of Gaza's buildings had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a truce was announced in early 2025 an approximately 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been damaged, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per Gaza's health ministry.

And the devastation has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN calculates more than 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, Hamas - 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 fierce combat against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, especially in the first months of the war.

But in Gaza, entire districts have been razed to the ground, medical facilities and places of worship have been obliterated 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.

Israeli authorities state Hamas uses civilian buildings such as hospitals for military purposes - but the group denies these claims.

Prior to the conflict, most of Gaza's 2.1 million people lived in its primary urban centers - Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Deir al-Balah, in the centre, and Gaza City.

Within 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive 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 approximately 1.9 million individuals had been forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.

Households have relocated multiple times as Israel changed the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and later ordering people to evacuate a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military warned people to leave ahead of operations in the area. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by warnings.

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 Gazans have been told to leave completely.

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 entire frontier.

Humanitarian organizations have to co-ordinate with the Israeli government to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any relief supplies from entering the territory at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was diverting it. Limited aid 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 shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of painkillers and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister declared on April 16 that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to protect Israeli communities even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - including 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 launched 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 whom are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The initial stage of the campaign concentrated on objectives within northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in August Israel revealed intentions to seize and control all of Gaza City itself - which it has called the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most crowded part of the territory before the war, 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 classified as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has persisted in conducting lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and dangerous.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have thus far evacuated the city of Gaza, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

But hundreds of thousands more remain there in severe living conditions, with health and other essential services failing.

Global Reactions

In September 2025, several countries, {including