Gaza War in Visualizations Following Two Years of Fighting

24 months of fighting have devastated Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health ministry, almost the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN says most homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.

The offensive 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 more were captured.

Israel says it is attempting to dismantle the military and governing capabilities of the militant organization, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.

A ceasefire proposal 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 transfer Gaza’s governance to Palestinian technocrats, but it has refused to agree to disarmament or to relinquishing any future political role in Gaza’s leadership.

Gaza is merely 41km in length and 10km in width - 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 a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is home to more than 2 million people.

Scale of Destruction

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

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israeli forces have perpetrated acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - although Israel has rejected the commission’s report, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".

This graphic overview shows how Gaza has turned into uninhabitable.

Expansion of Damage

Israel's campaign initially focused on the northern part of Gaza - where it said Hamas fighters were concealed within the civilian population. Hamas denied this.

The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, only 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontier, was among the initial locations struck by Israeli strikes. It experienced severe destruction.

Israel continued to bomb Gaza City and additional cities in the north and ordered civilians 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 fleeing towards. By the close of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did much of the north.

Israeli forces escalated its bombing of southern and central Gaza at the start of December, before initiating a land assault on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 over 50% of Gaza's buildings had been damaged or destroyed.

By the time a ceasefire was declared in January 2025 an approximately 60% of structures throughout Gaza had been damaged, with Gaza City suffering the heaviest destruction. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, according to the Gaza health authority.

And the devastation has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of March - encompassing Rafah in the south. The UN calculates more than 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Crisis

During the conflict, Hamas - which is designated as a terrorist organisation 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, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

However, within Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to sand and rubble by heavy vehicles and tanks used for destruction by Israeli troops.

Israel says militants utilize civilian buildings such as hospitals for armed operations - but Hamas denies that.

Prior to the conflict, the majority of Gaza’s population 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, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to abandon their residences, as per the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

And by the time the truce was implemented 15 months later, an estimated 1.9m people had been forcibly relocated - they continue to be unable to go back.

Families have moved repeatedly as Israel changed the focus of its operation, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward of Wadi Gaza river, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and subsequently directing people to leave a series of "safe zones" in the south.

Leaflet drops by the Israeli army alerted residents to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not every Israeli attack are preceded by alerts.

Expansion of Restricted Zones

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or making them subject to evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to leave completely.

Initially 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 coordinate with the Israeli government to work within the "no-go" areas.

Israeli forces had also prevented any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza at the beginning of March - alleging that Hamas was diverting it. Limited aid is now allowed in, although aid agencies still say it is nowhere near enough.

By the beginning of April all the UN-supported bakeries in Gaza had been closed, most fresh vegetables were in very limited supply and hospitals were limiting distribution of medications and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister declared on April 16 that Israel would establish security zones in Gaza to create a protective barrier to protect Israeli communities even after the war ended - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

At the time almost 70% of Gaza was affected 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, according to the UN.

And in May, Israel initiated a land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to secure the release of the 48 captives still held - 20 of which are believed to be living - and "finish the destruction" of the militant organization.

Since then the areas covered by displacement orders and other restrictions have been expanded to include 82 percent of the territory, as per the UN.

The initial stage of the operation concentrated on objectives within Rafah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza but in August Israel announced plans 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 prior to the conflict, with 775,000 residents residing there.

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

Hundreds of thousands of residents have thus far evacuated 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 severe living conditions, with health and other essential services collapsing.

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In September 2025, several countries, {including