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Two years of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities as reported by the Hamas-run health authority, almost the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN says 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 more were taken hostage.

Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy 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 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 - living and deceased - and to hand over control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to disarmament or to giving up any political involvement in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is merely 41km in length and 10km in width - about a quarter of the size of London - surrounded on three sides by closed borders with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is inhabited by over two million residents.

Extent of Damage

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

A UN investigative commission says Israeli forces have perpetrated acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israeli officials have dismissed the commission’s report, 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 claimed militants 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 airstrikes. It sustained heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and other urban centres in the north and ordered civilians to move south of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive 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 end of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did a large portion of the north.

Israel intensified its airstrikes on southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a truce was announced in early 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been harmed, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per the Gaza health authority.

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 residential buildings in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, the militant group - which is classified as a terrorist organisation by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and other armed groups allied to it have been engaged in intense battles against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been turned into sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli troops.

Israel says militants utilize civilian buildings such as medical centers for military purposes - but the group denies these claims.

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

In just 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

And by the time the truce was implemented after 15 months, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.

Households have relocated repeatedly 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 leave a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military warned people to leave ahead of military actions in the region. 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 imposing displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed 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 whole border.

Aid agencies have to coordinate with the Israeli authorities to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any relief supplies from entering the territory at the start of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been closed, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of medications and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on 16 April that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to protect Israeli communities even after the war ended - Hamas has insisted that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - 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 the month of May, Israel launched 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 believed to be living - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the regions affected by evacuation directives and limitations have been extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, according to the UN.

The initial stage of the campaign focused on objectives within Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel revealed intentions to capture and occupy the entire city of Gaza itself - which it has called the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most densely populated part of the territory before the war, with 775,000 people living there.

Individuals who stayed behind were instructed to relocate 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 continued to carry out 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 medical and vital services failing.

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In September 2025, multiple nations, {including