🔗 Share this article

24 months of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, almost the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The military operation was launched after Hamas's unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were captured.

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

A peace plan has been put forward by US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - living and deceased - and to hand over control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to giving up any political involvement in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - roughly one-fourth the area of London - bordered on three sides by closed borders with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean coast 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 findings of the commission, labeling it as "distorted and false".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has become in large parts unlivable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign first targeted northern Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were concealed within the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was among the initial locations hit by Israeli strikes. It sustained severe destruction.

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 conclusion of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments on the southern cities which numerous Gaza residents from the north were escaping to. By the end of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did a large portion of the north.

Israel intensified its bombing of the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 over 50% of structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a truce was announced in January 2025 an estimated 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip 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 the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN estimates over 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, Hamas - which is classified as a terrorist organisation by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and other armed groups affiliated with 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.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, medical facilities and places of worship have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses previously existed have been turned into sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

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

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

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

And by the time the truce was implemented 15 months later, an approximately 1.9 million individuals 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 Wadi Gaza river, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to leave a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli army warned people to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by alerts.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

After the truce was terminated, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to leave completely.

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

Humanitarian organizations have to coordinate with the Israeli authorities to work within 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 allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were rationing painkillers 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 - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was impacted by Israeli restrictions - including most of the 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 land operation 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 "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

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

The initial stage of the campaign focused on objectives within northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in the month of August Israel announced plans to seize and control the entire city of Gaza itself - which it has called the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most densely populated part of the territory before the war, with 775,000 residents living there.

Individuals who stayed behind were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has persisted in conducting lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

Numerous residents have so far fled Gaza City, 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.

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including