Gaza War in Visualizations Following Two Years of Hostilities

24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

Israel’s aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority, nearly the entire population has been forced to move, and the UN says most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation came in response to Hamas's unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were slain and 251 others were captured.

Israeli authorities claim it is attempting to dismantle the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction 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. The group has consented to release all captives - alive and dead - and to hand over Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has not committed to laying down arms or to relinquishing any future political role in the leadership of Gaza.

Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - about a quarter of the size of London - bordered 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 inhabited by more than 2 million people.

Extent of Damage

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

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israel has rejected the commission’s report, labeling it as "inaccurate and misleading".

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

Expansion of Damage

The Israeli operation first targeted northern Gaza - where it claimed militants were hiding among the non-combatant residents. The group refuted these allegations.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was among the initial locations hit by airstrikes. It sustained 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 end of October 2023.

But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments 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 a large portion of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its bombing of southern and central Gaza at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged.

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 experiencing the most severe damage. Over 46,000 Palestinians had been fatally wounded, according to the Gaza health authority.

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 damaged during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

Throughout the war, the militant group - which is classified as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and other armed groups allied to 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.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been razed to the ground, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses previously existed have been turned into sand and rubble by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state 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 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 7 October 2023, the Israeli military campaign had compelled almost 50% to leave their homes, according to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

And by the time the truce was implemented 15 months later, an estimated 1.9m people had been forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.

Families have moved repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, 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 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 restrictions are in place - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning residents have been instructed to leave completely.

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.

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

Israeli forces had also prevented any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was diverting it. Limited aid is now permitted to enter, although aid agencies 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 hospitals were rationing medications and antibiotics.

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

The Israeli Defense Minister announced on April 16 that Israel would set up protected areas in Gaza to create a protective barrier to safeguard Israeli towns even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli forces must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.

At the time almost 70% of Gaza was impacted by limitations imposed by Israel - 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 May, Israel launched a land operation 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 areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The first phase of the operation concentrated on targets in Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel revealed intentions to capture and occupy 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 residents 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 persisted in conducting lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and dangerous.

Numerous residents have so far fled the city of Gaza, where a starvation was verified in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

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

International Response

In September 2025, multiple nations, {including