Briefing | The war in maps

Mapping Israel’s war in Gaza

Our satellite tracking of the conflict with Hamas, updated regularly

Video: Getty Images and AP

Oct 17th 2023 (Updated on Nov 11th 2023)

12% of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged

Oct 13

Nov 06

318,600 people have had their homes damaged

Oct 13

Nov 06

What started as a horrific attack on October 7th—when Hamas militants crossed from Gaza into Israel and murdered an estimated 1,200 people, most of them civilians—has become a war. Israel has put Gaza under siege, and is battering the enclave with air strikes. Already the fighting has caused more bloodshed than any previous clash between the two groups. On the night of October 27th, as Israel stepped up aerial bombardment of Gaza, its ground troops entered the strip from two points: in the north, and near its narrow midpoint. By November 2nd they had encircled Gaza city and were engaged in close combat with Hamas militants.

We are tracking the conflict using satellite imagery and data on casualties and building damage. This page will be updated regularly as information becomes available. See more coverage on our hub.

Destruction

Detected structural damage, Oct 7th – Nov 6th 2023

Damage detected at

Oct 13th

Nov 6th

Israel dropped 6,000 bombs in the six days following Hamas’s attack. The Israeli Air Force has targeted weapons-production sites, rocket systems and Hamas command centres. It claims to have killed hundreds of terrorists. It has also caused massive collateral damage.

Our analysis of open-source satellite images shows the scale of the destruction. We used data from Sentinel-1, a satellite that flies over Gaza three times every 12 days. By comparing images taken in the six months before the war with the image from November 6th we have identified damaged areas.

Explore Israel's destruction in Gaza, building by building

The city of Beit Hanoun and the south-east and north-west areas of Gaza city appear to be the worst hit. Sources in Gaza confirm that the Al-Sousi and Ahmed Yassin mosques—which our analysis highlighted as damaged—have been levelled. Parts of the Al-Shati and Jabalia refugee camps have also been damaged. These are among the most crowded neighbourhoods in the densely populated region (see map below). Dozens of people are reported to have been killed in the strikes there.

By analysing the image from November 6th we estimate that around 31,000 buildings have been damaged, roughly 12% of the building stock of the Gaza Strip. This is almost three times the number that we identified as damaged on October 13th. By merging our damage map with fine-grained population data, we calculated that at least 318,000 people will have no home to return to when the fighting stops.

Estimated damage in Gaza*

Since October 7th 2023

	Buildings damaged Number	Share of total, %	Population with damaged homes Number	Share of total, %
November 6th	31,472	12.1	318,626	14.5

October 29th	28,818	11.1	280,959	12.8

October 24th	23,947	9.2	225,270	10.2

October 17th	20,630	7.9	192,118	8.7

October 13th	10,639	4.1	98,233	4.5

Our method is not perfect. Not all damage can be detected from above. As a result, our numbers, if anything, may be too low. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on October 21st that at least 42% of all housing units in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed. The true figure probably lies somewhere in between.

Incursions

Israel’s ground operations in Gaza have begun, though it is not the division-sized attack that the Israeli army had been signalling. Following an intense bombardment on October 27th, Israel Defence Force (IDF) troops crossed the border and held positions at Beit Hanoun in the north and near Bureij, on the southern edge of the evacuation zone. They have since pushed further into the enclave, cutting off Gaza city from the north and south.

Rather than seek a quick victory, the Israeli aim now appears to be to force Hamas out of its underground network of tunnels as supplies dwindle. Such a prolonged siege may avoid deadly urban combat. But Palestinians in Gaza will pay a high price for Israel’s drawn-out approach. Food, water and fuel in the territory are already scarce and its hospitals are badly overcrowded. A long campaign will prolong residents’ suffering.

Casualties

Cumulative deaths reported by each side*

To Friday November 10th

Palestinian†, reported by Gaza Ministry of Health
Israeli‡, reported by Israel

†

‡

The conflict has already exacted a grim cost. Israeli sources estimate Hamas’s attacks have killed at least 1,200 civilians and soldiers in Israel, and injured more than 5,000, according to authorities there. The Gaza health ministry reports that Israel’s response has killed over 10,000 people in Gaza and injured more than 20,000. These figures are hard to verify, and Hamas has been accused of inflating the number of casualties in some cases (such as following an explosion at a hospital on October 17th). The death toll reported by the government is rising more quickly than in any previous clash between the two sides. Between 2008 and 2023 extended conflicts and other bursts of violence between Israel and Hamas killed 5,360 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s government.

Connectivity

Internet connectivity in the Gaza Strip

100=pre-conflict average

Since Hamas’s attack Israel has intensified its blockade of the strip. Gaza’s communications infrastructure has also been largely destroyed by the fighting. The chart above shows the latest internet-connectivity level, and updates twice a day. Connectivity has fallen significantly since the start of the current fighting. Fibre-optic cables to the strip pass through Israel, and mobile-internet providers in Gaza are limited to the outdated 2G standard. The hit to connectivity since October 7th in some districts has been so severe as to be equivalent to a shutdown; in other parts of Gaza the internet has remained usable but slow. That hampers efforts to share early warnings of attacks (as the IDF has done on social media) and tell the world what is happening in the strip.

Displacement

On October 28th the Israeli army again warned Palestinians living in the north of the Gaza Strip to flee south. These include residents of Gaza city, the territory’s largest. Their journey is difficult and dangerous. The strip is small—41km long and 10km wide. But just two roads connect the north and south, and air strikes are occurring every day.

Some three-quarters of the civilian population is thought to have moved south since the start of the war. If all 1.1m residents of northern Gaza get there, the UN warns, their arrival could cause a humanitarian disaster. Gaza is already a crowded place. If its entire population were to move to the smaller built-up areas in the south, the density in those areas would reach an estimated 19,500 people per square kilometre. That would make the urban parts of southern Gaza more densely populated than Delhi in India, Alexandria in Egypt or Karachi in Pakistan, some of the most packed places on the planet. Most of the hospitals are in the north, too. ■

Sources: European Commission; European Space Agency; KASPR Datahaus; Monash IP Observatory; Open Street Map; UNRWA; UNOCHA; The Economist