🔗 Share this article

Two years of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority, almost the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN states most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation was launched after Hamas's unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were slain and 251 more were captured.

Israel says it is trying to destroy the military and governing capabilities of the Islamist group, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal has been proposed 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 Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to laying down arms or to giving up any political involvement in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is merely 41km in length and 10km in width - roughly one-fourth the area of London - bordered on three sides by sealed frontiers with Israel and Egypt and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is inhabited by more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

Over nine out of ten residences are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure 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 - even though Israeli officials have dismissed the commission’s report, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into unlivable.

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation initially focused on northern Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were hiding among the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the border, was one of the first areas struck by Israeli strikes. It experienced severe destruction.

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 end of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments on the urban areas in the south which numerous Gaza residents from the north were fleeing towards. 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 southern and central Gaza at the start 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 early 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per Gaza's health ministry.

And the destruction has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN estimates more than 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, Hamas - which is classified as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK and many other countries - 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, whole neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been turned into debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli soldiers.

Israel says militants utilize non-military structures such as hospitals for armed operations - but Hamas denies that.

Prior to the conflict, most of Gaza's 2.1 million people lived in its four main cities - Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Deir al-Balah, in the centre, and the city of Gaza.

Within 10 days of 7 October 2023, the Israeli military campaign had forced nearly half to abandon their residences, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

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 emphasis of their campaign, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a series of "safe zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military warned people to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by warnings.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

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 displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to leave completely.

At first the evacuation orders applied to two regions - 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 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 diverting it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is insufficient.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been shut down, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were limiting distribution of painkillers and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on 16 April that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period almost 70% of Gaza was affected by limitations imposed by Israel - encompassing most of the North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the entire Rafah governorate in the south, according to the UN.

And in the month of May, Israel launched a ground offensive named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated would seek to secure the release of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the areas covered by evacuation directives and limitations have been expanded to include 82% of Gaza, as per the UN.

The first phase of the operation concentrated 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 referred to as the “last stronghold” of Hamas.

The city had been the most crowded part of the territory prior to the conflict, with 775,000 people residing there.

Those who remained there were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - even though it has persisted in conducting deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have thus far evacuated the city of Gaza, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

But many more thousands remain there in dire humanitarian conditions, with health and other essential services failing.

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including