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24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-run health authority, almost the whole populace has been forced to move, 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 about 1,200 people were killed and 251 more were captured.

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

A peace plan has been put forward by American President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to transfer control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to giving up any future political role 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 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

More than 90% of homes are believed to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have broken down; and experts supported by the UN say there is starvation in Gaza City.

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israeli forces have perpetrated acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israel has rejected the findings of the commission, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation initially focused on northern Gaza - where it claimed militants were hiding among the civilian population. The group refuted these allegations.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was one of the first areas hit by Israeli strikes. It sustained severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and additional cities in the north and ordered civilians to move south 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 urban areas in the south which hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were fleeing towards. 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 southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in January 2025 an estimated 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been harmed, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per the Gaza health authority.

And the destruction has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN calculates more than 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

Throughout the war, Hamas - which is designated as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions allied to it have been involved in fierce combat against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

But in Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses previously existed have been reduced to debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

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

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 city, in the centre, and Gaza City.

In just 10 days of 7 October 2023, the Israeli military campaign had forced nearly half to leave their homes, as per the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the ceasefire was declared 15 months later, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been forcibly relocated - they continue to be unable to go back.

Families have moved multiple times as Israel changed the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of Wadi Gaza river, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to leave a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli military warned people to evacuate before military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by alerts.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

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 Gazans have been told to leave completely.

Initially 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.

Aid agencies have to coordinate with the Israeli government to operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any relief supplies from entering Gaza at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Limited aid 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 shut down, most fresh vegetables were in very limited supply and hospitals were limiting distribution of medications and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister announced on April 16 that Israel would set up security zones 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 permanent ceasefire.

During that period nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - encompassing most of the 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 land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would aim to secure the release of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

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

The initial stage of the campaign focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in the month of August Israel announced plans to capture and occupy 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 prior to the conflict, with 775,000 people residing there.

Those who remained there were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have so far fled the city of Gaza, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

But hundreds of thousands more continue to stay in dire humanitarian conditions, with health and other essential services collapsing.

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including