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Two years 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-run health authority, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN says most homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.

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

Israel says it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is committed to the elimination of Israel and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to release all captives - alive and dead - and to hand over control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to disarmament or to giving up 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 closed borders with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is inhabited by more than 2 million people.

Extent of Damage

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

A UN investigative commission says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israeli officials have dismissed the commission’s report, labeling it as "distorted and false".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into unlivable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign initially focused on northern 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 frontier, was one of the first areas struck by Israeli strikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and other urban centres 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 air strikes on the urban areas in the south which hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were escaping to. By the end of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did much of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its bombing of the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 over 50% of structures in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a truce was announced in early 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. 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 - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN calculates more than 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is designated as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions allied to it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, especially in the first months of the war.

However, within Gaza, entire districts have been completely demolished, medical facilities and places of worship have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state Hamas uses civilian buildings such as medical centers for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

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

In just 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to leave their homes, 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.

Families have moved multiple times as Israeli forces shifted the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and later ordering people to leave a number of "safe zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli military warned people to leave ahead of operations in the area. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by warnings.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as no-go zones - where restrictions are in place - or imposing displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to leave completely.

Initially the evacuation orders covered 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.

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza at the start of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Restricted assistance is now allowed in, although relief groups still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, the majority of fresh produce were in very limited supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of medications and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on 16 April that Israel would establish protected areas in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to protect Israeli communities even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - encompassing the majority of 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 launched a land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would seek to secure the release of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the regions affected by evacuation directives and limitations have been extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, according to the UN.

The first phase of the operation focused on objectives within northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in August Israel announced plans 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 prior to the conflict, with 775,000 residents 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 lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

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

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

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