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Two years of conflict have devastated Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-run health authority, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

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 more were captured.

Israeli authorities claim it is attempting to dismantle the military and governing capabilities of the Islamist group, 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 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms 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 closed borders 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

More than 90% of homes are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have broken down; and UN-backed experts 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 findings of the commission, labeling it as "distorted and false".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign 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, a mere 2km from the frontier, was among the initial locations hit by airstrikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and additional cities in the north and ordered civilians to move south 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 southern cities which hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were escaping to. By the close of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did a large portion of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its bombing of southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before initiating a land assault 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 structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per the Gaza health authority.

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

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, the militant group - which is classified as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and other armed groups affiliated with it have been engaged in intense battles 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 razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and agricultural land where greenhouses previously existed have been turned into sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize non-military structures such as medical centers for armed operations - but the group denies these claims.

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

Within 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had compelled almost 50% to leave their homes, as per the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

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

Families have moved repeatedly as Israel changed the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military alerted residents to evacuate before military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by alerts.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

After the truce was terminated, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to leave completely.

Initially 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 authorities to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any relief supplies from entering Gaza at the start of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, 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" loomed.

Israel’s defence minister declared on April 16 that Israel would set up protected areas in Gaza to create a protective barrier to protect Israeli communities following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - including the majority of 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 Netanyahu said would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom 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 extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, according to the UN.

The first phase of the campaign focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in the month of August Israel announced plans to capture and occupy the entire city of Gaza itself - which it has referred to as 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 residing 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” - despite the fact that it has continued to carry out deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have thus far evacuated Gaza City, 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 medical and vital services failing.

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including