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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-run health authority, almost the entire population has been displaced, and the UN states the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

The offensive came in response to Hamas's unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others were captured.

Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is committed to the elimination of Israel 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 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 disarmament or to giving up any political involvement in the leadership of Gaza.

Gaza is merely 41km in length and 10km in width - about a quarter of the size of London - bordered on three sides by sealed frontiers 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 estimated to be destroyed or damaged; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have broken down; and UN-backed experts say there is famine in Gaza City.

A UN investigative commission says Israeli forces have perpetrated genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israel has rejected the commission’s report, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

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

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it said militants were concealed within the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

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

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

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments 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.

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

By the time a ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an approximately 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been damaged, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per Gaza's health ministry.

And the devastation has continued since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN estimates over 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

During the conflict, the militant group - which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions allied to it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

But in Gaza, entire districts have been razed to the ground, medical facilities and places of worship 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 Hamas uses civilian buildings such as medical centers for armed operations - but Hamas denies that.

Prior to the conflict, the majority of Gaza’s population lived in its primary urban centers - Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Deir al-Balah city, 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, 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 multiple times as Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to leave a series of "safe zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli military warned people to evacuate before operations in the area. However, not all Israeli strikes 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 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 operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the start of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Restricted assistance is now allowed in, although relief groups still say it is insufficient.

By the beginning of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been closed, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister announced on 16 April that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to protect Israeli communities following the conclusion of hostilities - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

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 entire Rafah governorate in the south, as reported by the UN.

And in the month of May, Israel initiated a land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would aim to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" 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 the month of August Israel announced plans to seize and control all of Gaza City 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 residents living there.

Individuals who stayed behind were instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

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

But hundreds of thousands more continue to stay in severe living conditions, with health and other essential services collapsing.

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including