🔗 Share this article

Two years of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s bombing campaign and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority, nearly the entire population has been forced to move, and the UN says the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation was launched after Hamas’ unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others were captured.

Israel says it is trying to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the militant organization, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal has been put forward by American President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. The group has consented to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to independent Palestinian experts, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms or to relinquishing any future political role in Gaza’s leadership.

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

Scale of Destruction

Over nine out of ten residences are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have broken down; and experts supported by the UN say there is famine in Gaza City.

A UN investigative commission says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the commission’s report, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign initially focused on 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 border, 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 instructed residents to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive at the conclusion of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted air strikes on the urban areas in the south 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 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 destroyed or damaged.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an approximately 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been damaged, 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 - including in Rafah in the south. The UN calculates more than 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is designated as a terrorist organisation by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions allied to 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.

But in Gaza, entire districts have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

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

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

Within 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had compelled almost 50% to abandon their residences, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the truce was implemented 15 months later, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been forcibly relocated - they continue to be unable to go back.

Households have relocated repeatedly as Israel changed the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to move south of Wadi Gaza river, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and later ordering people to leave a number of "safe zones" in the south.

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

Expansion of Restricted Zones

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

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 co-ordinate with the Israeli government to operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any relief supplies from entering Gaza at the start of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, 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 shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in very limited supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of painkillers and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister declared on 16 April that Israel would establish protected areas in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was impacted by Israeli restrictions - 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 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 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 objectives within Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in the month of August Israel announced plans to capture and occupy the entire city of Gaza 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 people residing there.

Those who remained there were instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has persisted in conducting lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

Numerous residents have so far fled Gaza City, 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 collapsing.

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including