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Two years of fighting have devastated Gaza.

Israel’s bombing campaign and ground invasion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities as reported by the Hamas-controlled health ministry, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN states most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

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

Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, 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. The group has consented to free all remaining hostages - alive and dead - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to independent Palestinian experts, but it has not committed to disarmament or to giving up 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 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 damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and experts supported by the UN say there is starvation in Gaza City.

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israel has rejected the commission’s report, labeling 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 the northern part of Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were concealed within the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was among the initial locations hit by Israeli strikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and other urban centres in the north and instructed residents 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 urban areas in the south which numerous Gaza residents from the north were escaping to. By the end of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did much of the north.

Israel intensified its bombing of 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 structures in Gaza 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 harmed, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, according to the Gaza health authority.

And the devastation has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN calculates over 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

During the conflict, Hamas - which is designated as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and other armed groups allied to it have been involved in intense battles 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, medical facilities and places of worship have been destroyed and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state militants utilize non-military structures such as medical centers for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

Prior to the conflict, the majority of Gaza’s population lived in its four main cities - Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Deir al-Balah, in the centre, and Gaza City.

Within 10 days of 7 October 2023, the Israeli military campaign had forced nearly half to leave their homes, as per the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

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

Households have relocated multiple times as Israel changed the emphasis of their campaign, 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 military warned people to evacuate before 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 more and more areas of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to evacuation directives, meaning residents have been instructed to leave completely.

Initially the evacuation orders covered 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 coordinate with the Israeli government to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Limited aid 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 hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The humanitarian organization ActionAid cautioned that a "renewed period of hunger and dehydration" was imminent.

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on 16 April that Israel would set up protected areas in Gaza to create a protective barrier 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 affected by limitations imposed by Israel - including most of the 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 ground offensive named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the militant organization.

Since then the areas covered by evacuation directives and limitations have been expanded to include 82% of Gaza, as per the UN.

The first phase of the campaign focused on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel announced plans to seize and control all of Gaza City 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 residents residing there.

Those who remained there were instructed to relocate 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 lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

Numerous residents have thus far evacuated the city of Gaza, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

But hundreds of thousands more continue to stay in dire humanitarian conditions, with health and other essential services failing.

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In September 2025, multiple nations, {including