This map shows damage to human settlements across Gaza’s five governates as of September 13. The CUNY Institute estimates that 59% of buildings on the strip have been damaged.
Northern Gaza governorate
69% of buildings damaged
Rescue crews try to pull a girl from the wreckage of a building destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in Jabalya refugee camp, northern Gaza. Thousands of people are believed to be missing under the rubble.
Northern Gaza was the hardest-hit governorate in the early weeks of Israel’s offensive.
“They left us with nothing”
Mahmoud Almadhoun, shop owner
Wide pans of rice and soup steam over makeshift stoves at a soup kitchen in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza. Dozens of displaced people cram against a barrier, stretching out empty bowls.
Before the war, Mahmoud Almadhoun owned a shop selling mobile devices. But like many other retailers across the ravaged enclave, Israel’s bombing campaign destroyed his business – leaving him homeless. These days, Almadhoun runs this soup kitchen. “We were doing well, things were good. But now, there is no shop left, no home,” he told CNN on September 19. “All of our homes have been completely destroyed... They left us with nothing.”
Israel’s siege and bombardment have propelled the entire population of more than 2.2 million people in Gaza towards the risk of full-scale famine. At least 38 children have starved to death and 3,500 children are at risk of death due to malnutrition, Gaza’s Ministry of Health, and Government Media Office (GMO) reported last month.
Israeli forces have directly hit at least 34 bakeries in Gaza, according to Ismail Al-Thawabtah, the GMO’s director general. All 148 bakeries have been put out of service, he said, citing severe fuel shortages and the lack of flour entering the strip. Meanwhile, shortages have inflated food prices – at the same time as Palestinians whose livelihoods have been destroyed struggle to earn.
Almadhoun said he feeds between 600 and 800 families per day in the northern Gaza strip, telling CNN that his initiative is a testament to the Palestinian commitment to life under siege. “Thank God we survived physically,” he said. “That is our greatest victory.”
Gaza governorate
74% of buildings damaged
In this governorate we find Al-Shifa Hospital, one of many to have been damaged by the Israeli offensive over the past year.
Al-Shifa Hospital has been the target of multiple Israeli military operations which have heavily damaged the facility. It was considered a top-level teaching hospital.
“Healthcare system in ruins”
Dr Marwan Abu Sa’ada, General Manager of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City
The sound of bombing, strikes and helicopters engulf Al-Shifa Hospital, in northern Gaza, as medical workers attempt to revive healthcare services in what was once the largest facility in the strip.
“After what happened at Al-Shifa Hospital in March, the idea of being there at night is very scary,” Ali Alghaliz, an emergency doctor, told CNN on September 17. “Doing night shifts there is… a very, very huge risk to your life.”
The Israeli campaign has paralyzed the medical system in Gaza. At least 19 out of 36 hospitals are not functioning, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on October 2. More than 986 medical workers have been killed, the Ministry of Health reported on October 3.
Israeli forces raided Al-Shifa Hospital for the second time in March with the stated aim of targeting Hamas militants – unleashing a wave of destruction, bulldozing roads and leaving at least 381 bodies in mass graves, according to witnesses and local officials. Medical staff were detained, and displaced Palestinians were targeted by Israeli snipers and helicopters while trying to flee, the Ministry of Health said at the time. Israel said its troops had killed Hamas militants, and seized weaponry and intelligence documents.
Before the war, the teaching hospital housed 700 beds, 26 operating rooms and 32 ICU beds, according to Dr Marwan Abu Sa’ada, the general manager of the complex – as well as the largest neonatal department in the occupied Palestinian territories. At least 250,000 patients were treated annually in the emergency department alone. Now, just half of the facility has been renovated, added Abu Sa’ada.
“The devastating war in Gaza destroyed everything – buildings, trees, people – leaving our healthcare system in ruins,” said Abu Sa’ada. “Not a single stone was left unturned.”
Deir al-Balah governorate
49% of buildings damaged
People look through the rubble of buildings in April in Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza, a densely populated area that was home to tens of thousands of people before the war.
“Impacts of uncleared debris are severe”
Samer Abuzerr, public health scientist
Ribbons of smoke from makeshift fires run through the dusty streets of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Clouds of dust from uncleared rubble also pollute the air, according to Samer Abuzerr, a public health scientist displaced with his wife and their three daughters and son.
“The health impacts of uncleared debris in Gaza are severe and long-lasting,” he told CNN last month.
As many as 150,000 housing units have been destroyed, the GMO reported in September. Palestinians suffering the immediate trauma of losing their homes must also contend with the hazards posed by mounds of waste, unexploded ordnance, asbestos and human remains buried under vast piles of rubble.
Weapons remnants pose a particular threat to children, Abuzerr told CNN. Exposure to asbestos fibers can lead to cancers such as mesothelioma, while the presence of uncleared rubble in areas where people are trying to shelter can exacerbate asthma and bronchitis among children and cause skin infections and injuries, he added. In August, the World Health Organization reported 995,000 cases of acute respiratory infections in the strip.
Meanwhile, poor sanitary conditions make the spread of diseases via water and carriers like mosquitoes more likely, “creating a public health nightmare in an already overburdened healthcare system,” said Abuzerr. “The pollution from these makeshift fires, combined with the dust from destroyed buildings, has significantly worsened air quality."
Further south, in Khan Younis, the wreckage of a university campus struck by Israel’s bombardment is a reminder of the severe disruption to education in Gaza.
Khan Younis governorate
55% of buildings damaged
A woman and two children pass along a street in Khan Younis next to a flattened mosque, one of 825 damaged or destroyed in Gaza, according to Gaza's Government Media Office.
“A generation’s aspirations turned to dust”
Samer Abuzerr, assistant professor
Abuzerr misses the students who brought his seminar room to life at the University College of Science and Technology in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.
“There was a unique joy in being part of their journey toward becoming the next generation of health professionals,” the assistant professor told CNN. “Seeing the enthusiasm in their eyes and their desire to contribute to the well-being of our community gave me immense pride and hope for the future.”
Listen to Samer Abuzerr talking about what being a Palestinian in Gaza means to him
But Israeli forces hit the facility on January 7, OCHA reported. According to the UNICEF-led Education Cluster, 85% of school buildings had been destroyed or damaged as of July 6. The Palestinian Ministry of Education in Gaza confirmed that Israeli attacks have killed 11,600 students, more than 750 teachers and school staff, and 130 scholars, academics and university professors.
“Universities are not just buildings; they are symbols of resilience, knowledge and hope. To witness their destruction is to see a generation’s aspirations turned to dust,” added Abuzerr.
He told CNN that several of his colleagues and students had been killed since the war began – including one of his “brightest students” who had been working on a public health project aimed at improving water and sanitation practices in refugee camps. “Each loss is a reminder of the fragility of life here and it amplifies the sense of injustice we live with daily."
The father-of-four said he is haunted by the reality that his children’s academic prospects are hanging in the balance – like those of many young Palestinians. “I worry that this lost time will never be recovered and the damage to their intellectual and emotional development will be irreversible,” he said.
“At the same time, I cling to the hope that, through our collective resilience, we can somehow create a better future for them, despite everything.”
Rafah governorate
59% of buildings damaged
Deserted tent camps and buildings are dotted across Rafah, near the border with Egypt, after an Israeli ground incursion forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee the city earlier this spring for other central and southern areas of the strip.
Most displaced people in Gaza are living in makeshift shelters with fabric walls and have on average 1.5 square meters (16 square feet) of space, according to the UN, which is about the area of a single bed.
“The needs and devastation are indescribable”
Hisham Mhanna, communications officer for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Hisham Mhanna remembers the moment he was forced to leave his office in Rafah, before Israeli forces launched a ground incursion into the southern Gazan city in May. Throngs of people, pregnant women and children among them, fled carrying whatever they could squeeze into their backpacks – without the promise of safety ahead.
“It was an apocalyptic scene,” the communications officer for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told CNN in September. "Over the past 16 years, there has been a number of military operations that Palestinians in Gaza and their families could to some extent rebuild their lives (after)... This time they have lost everything.”
Like other local aid workers in the strip, Mhanna is trying to bring relief to his compatriots. But the Israeli offensive has led to “indescribable” humanitarian demand, he warned, citing sustained Israeli aid sanctions, lengthy truck inspections, damaged roads, Israeli strikes on aid convoys and impeded access to the north as among the challenges.
Meanwhile, the closure of the Rafah crossing by Israeli forces in May reduced the entry of aid into the strip, said Mhanna. The Israeli agency that controls the flow of aid into Gaza said on September 25 that at least 52,955 trucks carrying more than 1 million tons of aid had entered the enclave since the fighting erupted. But humanitarian agencies say it is not enough.
Listen to Hisham Mhanna reflect on one year of war in Gaza
The UN has accused Israel of creating a “man-made” catastrophe in Gaza. Just two weeks ago, the agency reported that at least 46% of coordinated humanitarian movements in Gaza were denied or impeded by Israel.
“If you walk through the displaced areas where people exist... You can tell how much suffering they have endured in trying to survive,” Mhanna told CNN. “Areas that used to be very busy with people walking around – markets, parks, campus areas – have just turned into rubble and sewage lakes."
