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24 months of conflict have devastated Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities according to the Hamas-run health authority, almost the entire population has been displaced, and the UN states most homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.

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

Israeli authorities claim it is attempting to dismantle the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel and has been governing Gaza since 2007.

A peace plan has been put forward by US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to release all captives - alive and dead - and to transfer control of Gaza to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to giving up any political involvement in the leadership of Gaza.

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 Israel and Egypt 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 destroyed or damaged; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed experts say there is famine in Gaza City.

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

This visual guide shows how Gaza has turned into unlivable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it claimed militants were hiding among the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

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

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and additional cities 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 fleeing towards. 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 southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 over 50% of Gaza's buildings had been destroyed or damaged.

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

And the devastation has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of 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 Catastrophe

Throughout the war, Hamas - which is classified as a terrorist organisation 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 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 agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli troops.

Israel says Hamas uses civilian buildings such as hospitals for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.

Prior to the conflict, the majority of Gaza’s population lived in its four main cities - Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Deir al-Balah, in the centre, and Gaza City.

Within 10 days of October 7, 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 after 15 months, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been internally displaced - they continue to be unable to go back.

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 leave a series of "safe zones" in the south.

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

Expansion of Restricted Zones

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or imposing displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

Initially the orders to evacuate 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 coordinate with the Israeli government to operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was commandeering it. Limited aid is now allowed in, 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 rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on April 16 that Israel would establish 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 permanent ceasefire.

At the time almost 70% of Gaza was impacted 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 initiated a ground offensive named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which the Prime Minister stated 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 first phase of the campaign concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in the month of August Israel revealed intentions to seize and control the entire city of Gaza itself - which it has referred to as 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 instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has classified as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has persisted in conducting lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

Numerous residents have thus far evacuated Gaza City, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

But hundreds of thousands more remain there in dire humanitarian conditions, with medical and vital services failing.

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