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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, nearly the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN states the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The military operation came in response to Hamas's 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 militant organization, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal 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 - living and deceased - and to hand over control of Gaza to independent Palestinian experts, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms or to relinquishing any political involvement in the leadership of Gaza.

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 coast to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

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

A UN investigative commission says Israeli forces have perpetrated genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israeli officials have dismissed the findings of the commission, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

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

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign first targeted northern Gaza - where it said militants were hiding among the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was among the initial locations struck by Israeli strikes. It experienced heavy damage.

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 initiated its land offensive at the conclusion of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments on the southern cities 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 a large portion of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its airstrikes on southern and central Gaza at the beginning of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an estimated 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip 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 destruction has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in the month of 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, the militant group - which is designated as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions 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, entire districts have been razed to the ground, medical facilities and places of worship have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses previously existed have been reduced to debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli troops.

Israel says Hamas uses non-military structures such as hospitals for armed operations - but Hamas denies that.

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

Within 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, as per 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 remain unable to return home.

Households have relocated multiple times as Israel changed 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 number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli army alerted residents to leave ahead of operations in the area. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

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.

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

Israel had also blocked any relief supplies from entering Gaza at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is insufficient.

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 hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The NGO ActionAid warned that a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" loomed.

Israel’s defence minister announced on April 16 that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was affected 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 May, Israel launched a land operation named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to secure the release of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of whom are believed to be living - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the regions affected by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The first phase of the operation focused on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza 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 densely populated part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 residents living there.

Individuals who stayed behind were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has persisted in conducting lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

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

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

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including