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24 months of fighting have devastated Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-run health ministry, almost the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN states the majority of residences 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 more were captured.

Israel says 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 ceasefire proposal has been proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - alive and dead - and to transfer control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree 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 - surrounded 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 home to more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

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

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

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 claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the non-combatant residents. 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 experienced heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted 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 conclusion of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching air strikes on the southern cities which numerous Gaza residents from the north were fleeing towards. By the close of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did much of the north.

Israel intensified its bombing of the southern and central regions at the start of December, before initiating a land assault 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, as per the Gaza health authority.

And the devastation has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN estimates over 90% of the residential buildings 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 razed to the ground, medical facilities and places of worship have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses previously existed have been turned into debris and dust by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state militants utilize civilian buildings such as hospitals for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

Before the war, 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 Gaza City.

Within 10 days of 7 October 2023, the Israeli military campaign had forced nearly half to leave their homes, according to 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 multiple times as Israel changed the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and subsequently directing people to leave a number of "safe zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military alerted residents to leave ahead of operations in the area. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by warnings.

Restricted Areas Grow

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as no-go zones - where restrictions are in place - or imposing displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to leave completely.

Initially the orders to evacuate 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 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 diverting 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, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and hospitals were rationing medications and antibiotics.

The NGO ActionAid cautioned that a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" was imminent.

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on April 16 that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - including 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 obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the militant organization.

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

The initial stage of the campaign concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in 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 residents residing there.

Those who remained there were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

Numerous 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.

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