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24 months of conflict have devastated Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority, almost the entire population has been displaced, and the UN states most homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The offensive was launched after Hamas’ 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 attempting to dismantle the military and governing capabilities of the militant organization, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been put forward by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - living and deceased - and to transfer Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms or to giving up any political involvement in the leadership of Gaza.

Gaza is merely 41km in length and 10km in width - roughly one-fourth the area of London - bordered on three sides by sealed frontiers with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Extent of Damage

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

A UN investigative commission says Israel has committed acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israeli officials have dismissed the commission’s report, labeling it as "distorted and false".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has turned into unlivable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation first targeted northern Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were concealed within the non-combatant residents. Hamas denied this.

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

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 initiated its land offensive at the conclusion of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching air strikes 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 a large portion of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its bombing of the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of Gaza's buildings 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 experiencing the most severe damage. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to Gaza's health ministry.

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

Humanitarian Catastrophe

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

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize civilian buildings such as hospitals for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

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

In just 10 days of 7 October 2023, the Israeli military campaign had compelled almost 50% to leave their homes, 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 forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.

Families have moved multiple times as Israel changed the emphasis of their campaign, initially telling people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to evacuate a series of "safe zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli army alerted residents to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as prohibited areas - where restrictions are in place - or making them subject to evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

At first the evacuation orders covered two regions - 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 the territory at the start of March - accusing Hamas of commandeering it. Limited aid is now permitted to enter, although aid agencies still say it is insufficient.

By the start of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and hospitals were limiting distribution of medications and antibiotics.

The humanitarian organization ActionAid warned that a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" was imminent.

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on April 16 that Israel would set up protected areas in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

At the time 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 whole of the Rafah governorate in the south, as reported by the UN.

And in May, Israel initiated a ground offensive 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 militant organization.

Since then the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, according to the UN.

The initial stage of the operation concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in the month of August Israel announced plans 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 prior to the conflict, 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 classified as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has persisted in conducting deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and dangerous.

Numerous residents have so far fled Gaza City, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

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

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