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24 months of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities as reported by the Hamas-run health authority, almost the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The military operation came in response to Hamas’ unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Israel says it is attempting to dismantle the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been put forward by American President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - alive and dead - and to transfer Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms or to relinquishing any future political role 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 closed borders with Israel and Egypt 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

Over nine out of ten residences are believed to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have broken down; and experts supported by the UN say there is famine in Gaza City.

A UN investigative commission says Israel has committed acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israeli officials have dismissed the findings of the commission, labeling it as "distorted and false".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has turned into unlivable.

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation 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 frontier, was one of the first areas struck 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 end of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted air strikes on the southern cities which numerous Gaza residents 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 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 Gaza's buildings had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a truce was announced in January 2025 an estimated 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been harmed, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, according to the Gaza health authority.

And the destruction has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN calculates over 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, 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 troops on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles 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 farmland where greenhouses previously existed have been turned into debris and dust by armored vehicles and machinery used for demolitions 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 7 October 2023, the Israeli military campaign had compelled almost 50% to leave their homes, as per the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the truce was implemented after 15 months, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been forcibly relocated - they continue to be unable to go back.

Households have relocated multiple times 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 later ordering people to leave a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli military alerted residents to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by warnings.

Restricted Areas Grow

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where restrictions are in place - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

At first the orders to evacuate 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 coordinate with the Israeli authorities to operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was 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 shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in very limited supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on 16 April that Israel would establish protected areas in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - encompassing 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 seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 captives still held - 20 of whom are believed to be living - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the regions affected 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 operation focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in 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 crowded part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 residents living 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” - despite the fact that it has persisted in conducting deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

Numerous 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, multiple nations, {including