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24 months of conflict have devastated Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, nearly the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN states most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The offensive was launched after Hamas's unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were slain and 251 more were taken hostage.

Israeli authorities claim it is attempting to dismantle the armed and administrative capacities of the militant organization, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been put forward by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - living and deceased - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to disarmament or to relinquishing any political involvement in the leadership of Gaza.

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 Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is inhabited by more than 2 million people.

Extent of Damage

Over nine out of ten residences are believed to be damaged or destroyed; 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 Israeli officials have dismissed the findings of the commission, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign first targeted northern Gaza - where it said militants were concealed within the civilian population. The group refuted these allegations.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was one of the first areas hit by airstrikes. It experienced 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 initiated its land offensive at the conclusion of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted aerial bombardments on the southern cities 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.

Israel intensified its bombing of southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged.

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

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

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, 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, especially in the first months of the war.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated 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 Hamas uses non-military structures such as hospitals for armed operations - but the group denies these claims.

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 the city of Gaza.

Within 10 days of October 7, 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 ceasefire was declared after 15 months, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.

Families have moved multiple times as Israel changed the focus of its operation, initially telling people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, 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 army alerted residents to evacuate before operations in the area. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by warnings.

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 displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to evacuate entirely.

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

Israeli forces had also prevented any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the start of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, 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 very limited supply and medical facilities were rationing medications and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister announced on April 16 that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - Hamas has insisted that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

At the time almost 70% of Gaza was impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - including most of the North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the entire Rafah governorate in the south, according to the UN.

And in the month of May, Israel launched a land operation named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the militant organization.

From that point onward the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The initial stage of the campaign concentrated on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in August Israel announced plans to capture and occupy 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 before the war, with 775,000 residents living there.

Individuals who stayed behind 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 deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have so far fled the city of Gaza, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

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

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including