🔗 Share this article

Two years of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-run health ministry, nearly the entire population has been forced to move, and the UN says the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

The offensive was launched after Hamas’ unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were slain and 251 more were taken hostage.

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

A peace plan has been proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - living and deceased - and to transfer Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to disarmament or to relinquishing any future political role in the leadership of Gaza.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - about a quarter of the size of London - bordered on three sides by sealed frontiers 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.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have broken down; and UN-backed experts say there is famine in Gaza City.

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israeli forces have perpetrated acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israeli officials have dismissed the findings of the commission, describing it as "distorted and false".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were concealed within the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was one of the first areas struck by Israeli strikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted 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.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted 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 southern and central Gaza at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 over 50% of structures in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged.

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 suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to the Gaza health authority.

And the destruction has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN estimates more than 90% of the residential buildings 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 other armed groups affiliated with it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, especially in the first months of the war.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, medical facilities and places of worship have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state Hamas uses non-military structures 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 - Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Deir al-Balah, in the centre, and the city of Gaza.

In just 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, as per the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

And by the time the truce was implemented 15 months later, an estimated 1.9m people had been internally displaced - they remain unable to return home.

Households have relocated repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, initially telling people in the north to move south 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 warned people to leave ahead of operations in the area. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to evacuation directives, meaning residents have been instructed to evacuate entirely.

At first 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 whole border.

Humanitarian organizations have to coordinate with the Israeli authorities to operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the beginning of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been closed, most fresh vegetables were in very limited supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The NGO 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 protected areas in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to protect Israeli communities following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period nearly 70% of Gaza was impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - including the majority of North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the whole of the Rafah governorate in the south, according to the UN.

And in May, Israel launched a ground offensive named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would seek to secure the release of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the militant organization.

From that point onward the regions affected by displacement orders and other restrictions have been extended to cover 82% of Gaza, according to the UN.

The first phase of the operation 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 referred to as 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 classified as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has continued to carry out deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have thus far evacuated the city of Gaza, where a starvation was verified 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