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24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-run health ministry, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN states the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The military operation came in response to Hamas's unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Israel says it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the militant organization, which is committed to the elimination of Israel 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 free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to transfer control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to disarmament or to giving up 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 - surrounded 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 inhabited by over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have collapsed; and UN-backed experts say there is famine in Gaza City.

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israeli forces have perpetrated genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israeli officials have dismissed the commission’s report, describing it as "distorted and false".

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

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it said militants were concealed within the civilian population. 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 sustained 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 end 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 end of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did a large portion of the north.

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

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

And the devastation has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN calculates more than 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 Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions affiliated with it have been involved in intense battles against Israeli forces 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, medical facilities and places of worship have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state Hamas uses non-military structures such as hospitals for armed operations - 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, in the centre, and the city of Gaza.

Within 10 days of October 7, 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 ceasefire was declared after 15 months, an estimated 1.9m people had been internally displaced - they remain unable to return home.

Households have relocated repeatedly as Israel changed the focus of its operation, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward of Wadi Gaza river, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to leave a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli army alerted residents to evacuate before operations in the area. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by alerts.

Restricted Areas Grow

After the truce was terminated, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as no-go zones - where restrictions are in place - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning residents have been instructed 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.

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

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

By the beginning of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been closed, most fresh vegetables were in very limited supply and medical facilities were rationing medications and antibiotics.

The humanitarian organization ActionAid cautioned that a "renewed period of hunger and dehydration" was imminent.

Israel’s defence 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 forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was affected by Israeli restrictions - encompassing the majority of 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 May, Israel launched 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 believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the militant organization.

From that point onward the areas covered by evacuation directives and limitations have been extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The first phase of the campaign focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in August Israel revealed intentions to seize and control 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.

Individuals who stayed behind were ordered to move 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.

Numerous residents have so far fled Gaza City, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

But many more thousands continue to stay in dire humanitarian conditions, with medical and vital services failing.

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including