Gaza Conflict in Maps Following Two Years of Hostilities

24 months of fighting have ravaged Gaza.

The Israeli aerial assaults and ground invasion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians as reported by the Hamas-controlled health authority, almost the whole populace has been displaced, and the UN states most homes have been damaged or destroyed.

The military operation was launched after Hamas’ unprecedented assault across the border on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were captured.

Israel says it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is committed 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. 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 refused to agree 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 - roughly one-fourth the area of London - surrounded on three sides by closed borders with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean coast to the west, where Israel imposes a blockade. It is home to over two million residents.

Scale of Destruction

More than 90% of homes are believed to be destroyed or damaged; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed experts say there is starvation in Gaza City.

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

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

How the Destruction Spread

The Israeli operation first targeted the northern part of Gaza - where it said 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 frontier, was one of the first areas struck by airstrikes. It experienced heavy damage.

Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and other urban centres 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.

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.

Israeli forces escalated its airstrikes on the southern and central regions at the start of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by the start of 2024 more than half of structures in Gaza 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 killed, according to the Gaza health authority.

And the destruction 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 housing units in Gaza have been affected during the war.

Humanitarian Catastrophe

During the conflict, the militant group - which is classified as a terror group by multiple nations including Israel and the UK - and other armed groups affiliated with it have been engaged in fierce combat against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also fired thousands of rockets into Israel, particularly during the initial phase of the war.

However, within Gaza, entire districts have been completely demolished, hospitals and mosques have been obliterated and agricultural land where greenhouses once stood have been reduced to debris and dust by armored vehicles and machinery used for destruction by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli authorities state Hamas uses civilian buildings such as medical centers for armed operations - but the group denies these claims.

Prior to the conflict, most of Gaza's 2.1 million people 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 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had compelled almost 50% to leave their homes, as per the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

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

Families have moved multiple times as Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, initially telling people in the north to relocate southward of Wadi Gaza river, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and later ordering people to leave a number of "evacuation zones" in the south.

Airdropped leaflets by the Israeli military alerted residents to leave ahead of military actions in the region. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by warnings.

Restricted Areas Grow

Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated more and more areas of Gaza as no-go zones - where restrictions are in place - or making them subject to evacuation directives, meaning Gazans have been told to evacuate entirely.

Initially the orders to evacuate applied to two regions - in the North Gaza and Khan Younis governorates - with a “no-go” area in place along the entire frontier.

Humanitarian organizations 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 beginning of March - accusing Hamas of diverting it. Restricted assistance is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is insufficient.

By the beginning of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been shut down, the majority of fresh produce were in very limited supply and hospitals were rationing medications and antibiotics.

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

Israel’s defence minister declared on 16 April that Israel would establish protected areas in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to protect Israeli communities following the conclusion of hostilities - Hamas has insisted that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any lasting truce.

During that period nearly 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, according to the UN.

And in May, Israel initiated a ground offensive named Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of whom are thought to be alive - and "complete the defeat" of the Palestinian armed group.

From that point onward the regions affected 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 campaign focused on targets in northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in August Israel announced plans to seize and control the entire city of Gaza itself - which it has called 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.

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 deadly strikes there and which the UN said was already overcrowded and unsafe.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have thus far evacuated Gaza City, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.

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

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In September 2025, several countries, {including