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Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-run health authority, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

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

Israeli authorities claim it is attempting to dismantle the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel 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 halt hostilities at once. The group has consented to release all captives - alive and dead - and to hand over Gaza’s governance 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 - 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 Israel imposes a blockade. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are estimated 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 UN investigative commission says Israel has committed acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the findings of the commission, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has become in large parts uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the border, was one of the first areas struck by Israeli strikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and additional cities in the north and ordered civilians 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 urban areas in the south 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 the southern and central regions at the start of December, before launching a ground offensive 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 ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an estimated 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip 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 destruction has continued since Israel ended the ceasefire in the month of March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN calculates more than 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, the militant group - which is designated as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions allied to it have been engaged in intense battles against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles 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 previously existed have been reduced to sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says Hamas uses civilian buildings such as medical centers for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

Before the war, 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 Gaza City.

Within 10 days of October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to leave their homes, as per the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

And by the time the truce was implemented after 15 months, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been internally displaced - they continue to be unable to go back.

Families have moved repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a series 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 alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

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 making them subject to displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to leave completely.

At first the evacuation orders covered 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.

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been shut down, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of painkillers and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on 16 April that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was affected by limitations imposed by Israel - 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 ground offensive 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 "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the regions affected by displacement orders and other restrictions have been extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, according to the UN.

The first phase of the campaign focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in August Israel announced plans 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 crowded part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 residents residing there.

Those who remained there were instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has persisted in conducting lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and dangerous.

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

But many more thousands continue to stay in severe living conditions, with health and other essential services collapsing.

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including