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24 months of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s bombing campaign and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-controlled health authority, almost the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN states the majority of residences have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The offensive was launched after Hamas’ unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were slain and 251 more were taken hostage.

Israel says it is trying to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the Islamist group, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - alive and dead - and to transfer Gaza’s governance to independent Palestinian experts, but it has refused to agree to disarmament or to giving up any political involvement 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 Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

Over nine out of ten residences are believed to be destroyed or damaged; 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 genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israeli officials have dismissed the commission’s report, labeling it as "distorted and false".

This visual guide shows how Gaza has turned into unlivable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were concealed within the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the border, was one of the first areas hit by airstrikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and additional cities in the north and instructed residents to move south of the Wadi Gaza river before it initiated its land offensive at the conclusion of October 2023.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted air strikes 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 much of the north.

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

By the time a ceasefire was declared in early 2025 an estimated 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been harmed, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to Gaza's health ministry.

And the destruction has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN calculates more than 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

During the conflict, Hamas - which is designated as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions allied to it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli troops 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, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been turned into sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli troops.

Israeli authorities state militants utilize non-military structures such as medical centers 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, in the centre, and the city of Gaza.

In just 10 days of October 7, 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to abandon their residences, according to 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 Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward of Wadi Gaza river, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a series of "safe 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 warnings.

Restricted Areas Grow

After the truce was terminated, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where restrictions are in place - or making them subject to displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

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 coordinate with the Israeli authorities to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza 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 all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, the majority of fresh produce were in very limited supply and hospitals were rationing medications and antibiotics.

The NGO ActionAid warned that a "new cycle of starvation and thirst" was imminent.

Israel’s defence minister announced 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 - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time almost 70% of Gaza was affected by limitations imposed by Israel - including 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 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 remaining hostages - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the militant organization.

From that point onward the regions affected by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82% of Gaza, as per the UN.

The initial stage of the operation focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in the month of August Israel revealed intentions to seize and control all of Gaza City itself - which it has called the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most densely populated part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 people 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” - even though it has persisted in conducting 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 famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

But hundreds of thousands more remain there in severe living conditions, with health and other essential services collapsing.

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