🔗 Share this article

24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, almost the entire population has been displaced, and the UN states the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation came in response to Hamas's unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 more were captured.

Israeli authorities claim it is attempting to dismantle the military and governing capabilities of the militant organization, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to transfer control of Gaza to independent Palestinian experts, but it has refused to agree to disarmament or to giving up any political involvement 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 sealed frontiers with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is home to over two million residents.

Extent of Damage

Over nine out of ten residences are believed to be destroyed or damaged; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have collapsed; and UN-backed experts 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 findings of the commission, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has become in large parts unlivable.

How the Destruction Spread

Israel's campaign initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the non-combatant residents. 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 sustained heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and additional cities in the north and instructed residents to move south of the Wadi Gaza river before it launched its ground invasion at the end of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments on the urban areas in the south which numerous Gaza residents from the north were escaping to. 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 start of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 more than half of Gaza's buildings had been destroyed or damaged.

By the time a truce was announced in early 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, as per Gaza's health ministry.

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

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, Hamas - which is designated as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and additional factions affiliated with it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

But in Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, medical facilities and places of worship have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize non-military structures such as hospitals for military purposes - but the group denies these claims.

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

In just 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had forced nearly half to abandon their residences, as per the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

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

Families have moved repeatedly as Israel changed the focus of its operation, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and later ordering people to leave a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

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

Restricted Areas Grow

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as prohibited areas - where restrictions are in place - or imposing 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.

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

Israeli forces had also prevented any relief supplies from entering Gaza at the start of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is insufficient.

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

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

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on April 16 that Israel would set up protected areas in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

At the time almost 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 ground offensive named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the militant organization.

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

The first phase of the operation focused 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 called the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most densely populated part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 people residing there.

Individuals who stayed behind were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has continued to carry out deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

Numerous 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 remain there in severe living conditions, with health and other essential services failing.

Global Reactions

In September 2025, several countries, {including