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Two years of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli bombing campaign and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health ministry, almost the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN states most homes 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 taken hostage.

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

A ceasefire proposal has been proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to release all captives - alive and dead - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to independent Palestinian experts, but it has not committed 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 - roughly one-fourth the area 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 over two million residents.

Extent of Damage

Over nine out of ten residences are estimated to be destroyed or damaged; 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 Israeli forces have perpetrated genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israeli officials have dismissed the findings of the commission, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

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

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign initially focused on northern Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the civilian population. 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 hit by airstrikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and other urban centres 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 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 initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by the start of 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. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, as per the Gaza health authority.

And the devastation has persisted since Israel ended the ceasefire in March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN calculates 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 terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions affiliated with it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli troops on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, especially in the first months of the war.

However, within Gaza, entire districts have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli troops.

Israel says Hamas uses 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, 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 15 months later, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.

Families have moved repeatedly as Israel changed the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to evacuate a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli army warned people to evacuate before military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by warnings.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to displacement orders, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

At first the orders to evacuate covered 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 co-ordinate with the Israeli authorities to operate in the "no-go" areas.

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the start of March - accusing Hamas of commandeering it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been closed, the majority of fresh produce were in very limited supply and hospitals were limiting distribution of painkillers and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on 16 April that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

At the time nearly 70% of Gaza was impacted by Israeli restrictions - including 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 land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would aim to secure the release of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of which are thought to be alive - and "finish the destruction" of the militant organization.

From that point onward the regions affected by displacement orders and other restrictions have been extended to cover 82 percent of the territory, according to the UN.

The first phase of the operation focused on objectives within Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza 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 crowded part of the territory before the war, with 775,000 residents living there.

Individuals who stayed behind were ordered to move south to al-Mawasi in the southwestern part of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have thus far evacuated Gaza City, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-supported agency.

But hundreds of thousands more continue to stay in dire humanitarian conditions, with health and other essential services collapsing.

International Response

In September 2025, several countries, {including