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24 months of fighting have devastated Gaza.

Israel’s bombing campaign and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities as reported by the Hamas-run health authority, nearly the entire population has been forced to move, and the UN says most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The offensive came in response to 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 armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to release all captives - alive and dead - and to hand over control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree 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 a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to 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 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 Israel has rejected the findings of the commission, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation initially focused on northern Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the civilian population. The group refuted these allegations.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was one of the first areas hit by airstrikes. It sustained heavy damage.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and additional cities in the north and instructed residents to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza river before it launched its ground invasion at the end of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted air strikes on the southern cities which hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were fleeing towards. 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 airstrikes on the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 over 50% of Gaza's buildings had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in January 2025 an approximately 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been harmed, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per the Gaza health authority.

And the destruction has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in the month of March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN estimates over 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

Throughout the war, Hamas - which is classified as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions affiliated with it have been involved in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, especially in the first months of the war.

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

Israeli authorities state militants utilize non-military structures such as medical centers for armed operations - but the group denies these claims.

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

Within 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to abandon their residences, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

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

Households have relocated repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted 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 evacuate a number of "safe zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military warned people to evacuate before operations in the area. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or imposing displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

Initially the evacuation orders applied to two regions - in the North Gaza and Khan Younis governorates - with a “no-go” area in place along the entire frontier.

Humanitarian organizations have to coordinate with the Israeli authorities to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza at the start of March - alleging that Hamas was diverting it. Limited aid is now permitted to enter, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

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

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

Israel’s defence minister declared on April 16 that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to protect Israeli communities even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw 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, as reported by the UN.

And in the month of May, Israel launched a land operation named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of which are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the regions affected by evacuation directives and limitations have been extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The initial stage of the campaign focused on objectives within northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in August Israel announced plans 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 crowded part of the territory before the war, with 775,000 people residing there.

Those who remained there were ordered to move 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 overcrowded and dangerous.

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

But hundreds of thousands more remain there in dire humanitarian conditions, with health and other essential services collapsing.

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including