🔗 Share this article

Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-controlled health authority, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

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

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

A ceasefire proposal has been proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to transfer Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms 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 - surrounded on three sides by sealed frontiers with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Extent of Damage

More than 90% of homes are believed 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 UN investigative commission says Israeli forces have perpetrated acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the findings of the commission, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

How the Destruction Spread

Israel's campaign first targeted northern Gaza - where it said militants were concealed within the non-combatant residents. Hamas denied this.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the border, was among the initial locations hit by airstrikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Israel continued to bomb 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 conclusion of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments on the urban areas in the south 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 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 the start of 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a truce was announced in January 2025 an approximately 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, as per the Gaza health authority.

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

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is designated as a terrorist organisation 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.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, medical facilities and places of worship have been destroyed and agricultural land where greenhouses previously existed have been reduced to debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

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

Before the war, 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.

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 truce was implemented 15 months later, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.

Households have relocated multiple times as Israeli forces shifted the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to move south of Wadi Gaza river, 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 warned people to evacuate before operations in the area. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by warnings.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to displacement orders, 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.

Aid agencies have to coordinate with the Israeli government to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any relief supplies from entering Gaza at the beginning of March - accusing Hamas of commandeering it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, 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, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The humanitarian organization ActionAid warned that a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" loomed.

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on 16 April that Israel would establish protected areas in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

During that period nearly 70% of Gaza was impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - 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 May, Israel initiated 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 whom are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the areas covered 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 targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in the month of August Israel announced plans to seize and control the entire city of Gaza itself - which it has referred to as the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most crowded part of the territory before the war, with 775,000 people living there.

Those who remained there were instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated 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-backed body.

But many more thousands remain there in severe living conditions, with medical and vital services collapsing.

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including