Statistics alone cannot capture the toll the Israel-Hamas war has taken on the Gaza Strip. But they can help us understand how thoroughly the conflict has upended the lives of 2.1 million Palestinians living in the enclave and decimated the territory’s 365 square kilometres (140 square miles), said an AP report.
Out of every 10 people, one has been killed or injured in an Israeli strike. Nine are displaced. At least three have not eaten for days. Out of every 100 children, four have lost either one or both parents. Out of every 10 buildings that stood before the Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza started, eight are either damaged or flattened. Out of every 10 homes, nine are wrecked. Out of every 10 acres of cropland, eight are razed (more than three out of every four hectares).
The AP report presents a closer look at the devastation that the war caused, by the numbers. It says roughly 11% of Gaza’s population has been killed or injured. Graveyards are overflowing. Mass graves dot the strip. Israeli airstrikes have killed entire families in their homes. More than 2,000 people seeking food have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. In some cases, Israel has acknowledged firing warning shots at chaotic crowds attempting to obtain desperately needed aid.
As per the AP report, Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities and limitations on the entry of medical supplies have left overwhelmed doctors to treat advanced burn victims with rudimentary equipment. Israel says it strikes hospitals because Hamas operates in them and uses them as command centres, though it has offered little evidence.
The war is the deadliest conflict for journalists, health workers and U.N. aid workers in history, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the U.N. The British Medical Journal says the prevalence of patients with injuries from explosives in Gaza compares to data on injured U.S. combat forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In all, Israel’s campaign has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 170,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. More than 40,000 of those wounded have life-altering injuries, according to the World Health Organisation.
The death toll does not include the thousands of people believed buried under the rubble. The ministry’s figures are seen as a reliable estimate by the U.N. and many independent experts.
Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian toll, saying the group’s presence in residential areas has turned the population into human shields. Still, its strikes often hit homes, killing many inside with no word of who the target was.
Countless Palestinian families have fled the length of Gaza and back, forced to move every few months to dodge successive Israeli offensives. Many have been displaced multiple times, moving between apartments and makeshift tent camps as they try to survive. Squalid tent cities now sprawl across much of Gaza’s south.
Displacements have separated families. Heavy bombardment has left thousands buried under the rubble. Troops round up and detain men, from dozens to several hundreds at a time, searching for any they suspect of Hamas ties. The result is families split apart.
The AP report further said that Israel’s military has gained control of the vast majority of Gaza, pushing most of the Palestinian population to a small zone along the southern coast. Under Israeli control, Gaza’s land has been transformed. Forces have flattened or bulldozed entire neighbourhoods of Gaza City and small agricultural towns dotting the border, carved new roads across the territory and built up new military posts.
Bombardment has carpeted the Gaza Strip in a blanket of rubble roughly 12 times the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Using imagery of Gaza from space, the U.N.’s Satellite Centre says that at least 102,067 buildings have been destroyed. In the wreckage lie the ruins of grade schools and universities, medical clinics and mosques, greenhouses and family homes.
Towns scattered across the strip, where Palestinian farmers used to plant strawberries and watermelons, wheat and cereals, are now emptied and flattened. Between May and October 2025, Israeli bombardment and demolitions virtually erased the town of Khuzaa, whose rows of wheat and other cereals made it a breadbasket for the city of Khan Younis.
With the war entering its third year, Israel has launched an offensive to take over Gaza City and kill the Hamas militants it says are hiding there.
