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Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli bombing campaign and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health ministry, almost the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN says most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

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

Israel says it is trying to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the militant organization, which is committed to the elimination of Israel and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been put forward 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 transfer Gaza’s governance to independent Palestinian experts, 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 - 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 over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are believed to be destroyed or damaged; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have broken down; and UN-backed experts say there is starvation in Gaza City.

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

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation first targeted northern Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the border, was among the initial locations struck by airstrikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and other urban centres in the north and ordered civilians to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive at the end of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments on the urban areas in the south 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.

Israel intensified its bombing of southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 over 50% of Gaza's buildings had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a truce was announced in early 2025 an estimated 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been harmed, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to Gaza's health ministry.

And the devastation has persisted since the truce was terminated by Israel in March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN calculates over 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is designated as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and other armed groups allied to 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.

But in Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to debris and dust by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize non-military structures such as hospitals for armed operations - but Hamas denies that.

Prior to the conflict, 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 October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to leave their homes, as per the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

And by the time the truce was implemented after 15 months, an estimated 1.9m people had been forcibly relocated - they continue to be unable to go back.

Families have moved multiple times as Israel changed the focus of its operation, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward of Wadi Gaza river, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to leave a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli army warned people to leave ahead of operations in the area. However, not all Israeli strikes 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 limitations are enforced - or making them subject to evacuation directives, meaning residents have been instructed to evacuate entirely.

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

Aid agencies 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 beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was diverting it. Restricted assistance is now allowed in, although relief groups still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been shut down, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were rationing painkillers 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 protected areas 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.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was affected 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 seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82% of Gaza, according to the UN.

The first phase of the operation concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel revealed intentions to seize and control all of Gaza City itself - which it has called the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most crowded part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 residents living 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 continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have so far fled Gaza City, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

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

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