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24 months of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s bombing campaign and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-run health ministry, nearly the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN states the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

The offensive came in response to Hamas's unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 more were captured.

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

A ceasefire proposal has been put forward by American 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 control of Gaza to independent Palestinian experts, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms or to giving up any future political role in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - about a quarter of the size of London - surrounded on three sides by closed borders with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

Over nine out of ten residences are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed experts say there is famine in Gaza City.

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israel has rejected the commission’s report, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

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

How the Destruction Spread

Israel's campaign first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the non-combatant residents. Hamas denied this.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was one of the first areas struck by Israeli strikes. It sustained severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and other urban centres in the north and instructed residents to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive at the conclusion of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted air strikes 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 much 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 more than half of structures in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged.

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. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to the Gaza health authority.

And the devastation has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN calculates over 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been affected 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 involved in fierce combat against Israeli troops 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 obliterated and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into 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 Hamas denies that.

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 October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive had compelled almost 50% to leave their homes, according to 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.

Households have relocated repeatedly as Israel changed the focus of its operation, first instructing people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli army warned people to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by alerts.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as no-go zones - where restrictions are in place - or imposing displacement orders, meaning residents have been instructed to leave completely.

Initially the orders to evacuate covered 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 co-ordinate with the Israeli authorities to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is insufficient.

By the beginning of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been shut down, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

The humanitarian organization ActionAid warned that a "renewed period of hunger and dehydration" loomed.

Israel’s defence minister declared on April 16 that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was impacted by Israeli restrictions - encompassing 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 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 thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the areas covered by evacuation directives and limitations have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, according to the UN.

The first phase of the campaign concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel announced plans to capture and occupy the entire city of Gaza itself - which it has called the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

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

Those who remained there were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part 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 overpopulated and unsafe.

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

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

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including