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24 months of conflict have devastated 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 forced to move, and the UN states most homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The offensive came in response to Hamas’ unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Israel says it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the militant organization, 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 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. The group has consented to release all captives - alive and dead - and to transfer Gaza’s governance to independent Palestinian experts, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to relinquishing any political involvement in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - roughly one-fourth the area of London - surrounded on three sides by closed borders with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is home to over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

Over nine out of ten residences are believed to be damaged or destroyed; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have broken down; 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 Israel has rejected the findings of the commission, labeling it as "distorted and false".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

How the Destruction Spread

Israel's campaign initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were hiding among the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the frontier, was one of the first areas hit by Israeli strikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and other urban centres 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.

But Israel was also launching air strikes on the urban areas in the south which numerous Gaza residents from the north were escaping to. By the close of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did a large portion of the north.

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

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

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

Humanitarian Crisis

During the conflict, Hamas - which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and other armed groups affiliated with it have been involved in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, especially in the first months 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 previously existed have been turned into debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

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

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

Within 10 days of October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to abandon their residences, as per the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the ceasefire was declared 15 months later, an estimated 1.9m people had been internally displaced - they remain unable to return home.

Families have moved repeatedly as Israel changed the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of Wadi Gaza river, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military alerted residents to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by warnings.

Restricted Areas Grow

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as no-go zones - where restrictions are in place - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning residents have been instructed to evacuate entirely.

Initially the evacuation orders covered two areas - in the North Gaza and Khan Younis governorates - with a “no-go” area in place along the whole border.

Aid agencies 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. Limited aid is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is insufficient.

By the beginning of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of medications and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on 16 April that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - Hamas has insisted that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

At the time almost 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - 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 initiated a ground offensive named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the regions affected by evacuation directives and limitations have been expanded to include 82% of Gaza, according to the UN.

The initial stage of the campaign concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel revealed intentions to seize and control 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 before the war, with 775,000 residents living there.

Individuals who stayed behind 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 overpopulated and dangerous.

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

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