🔗 Share this article

Two years of conflict have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and military incursion have resulted in over 67,000 Palestinian fatalities according to the Hamas-run health ministry, nearly the whole populace has been forced to move, and the UN states the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation came in response to Hamas's unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 more were taken hostage.

Israeli authorities claim it is attempting to dismantle 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 proposed by US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would halt hostilities at once. Hamas has agreed to free all remaining hostages - alive and dead - and to hand over control of Gaza to independent Palestinian experts, but it has not committed to disarmament or to relinquishing 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 coast to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Extent of Damage

Over nine out of ten residences are believed to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and experts supported by the UN say there is famine in Gaza City.

A UN investigative commission says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israel has rejected the commission’s report, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

How the Destruction Spread

Israel's campaign first targeted northern Gaza - where it said militants were concealed within the non-combatant residents. Hamas denied this.

The northern town of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was among the initial locations hit by airstrikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and other urban centres 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.

Simultaneously, Israel conducted air strikes on the urban areas in the south 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 the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 over 50% of Gaza's buildings had been damaged or destroyed.

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

And the devastation has continued since Israel ended the ceasefire in the month of March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN calculates over 90% of the housing units in Gaza have been damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is classified as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and other armed groups allied to it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli forces 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, medical facilities and places of worship have been obliterated and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been turned into sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli troops.

Israel says Hamas uses non-military structures such as medical centers for military purposes - but the group denies these claims.

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 city, in the centre, and Gaza City.

In just 10 days of October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign had compelled almost 50% to leave their homes, as per the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

And by the time the truce was implemented after 15 months, an approximately 1.9 million individuals had been forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.

Households have relocated repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which cuts the Strip roughly in half, and subsequently directing people to leave a number of "safe zones" in the south.

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

Expansion of Restricted Zones

After the truce was terminated, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as prohibited areas - where limitations are enforced - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning residents have been instructed 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 entire frontier.

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

Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the start of March - alleging that Hamas was diverting it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in extremely short supply and hospitals were rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister declared on April 16 that Israel would set up security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to protect Israeli communities following the conclusion of hostilities - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time almost 70% of Gaza was impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - including most of the North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the entire Rafah governorate in the south, as reported by the UN.

And in 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 believed to be living - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

Since then the areas covered by evacuation directives and limitations have been expanded to include 82% of Gaza, according to the UN.

The initial stage of the campaign 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 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 designated 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 dangerous.

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

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

Global Reactions

In September 2025, several countries, {including