Gaza lies in ruin.
Bombing and demolitions by Israel have completely erased neighbourhoods from the map.
Homes have been reduced to rubble.
When displaced 25-year-old Nour Alsaqa imagines herself back home in Gaza City, she remembers the little things.
She is standing in a room that overlooks the garden, with her easel and watercolours.
There is music drifting from her bedroom where her best artwork hangs on the wall.
“When I think of my house, it was not very special, but it contained us."
"(I think about) these collective moments together that we'd spend as a family," the artist and communications officer for Médecins Sans Frontières said.
“The privacy everyone had in his own room, in his own little corner that we now lack — that is a complete luxury.”
Nour's home in Tel al-Hawa was in a regular suburban neighbourhood — filled with tree-lined walkways and ornate cast-iron doors.
The pathways were laid with patterned pavers inspired by Islamic architecture. Her best friend lived just a few houses down — something they discovered coincidentally in their 10th grade class.
"It was so beautiful — our neighbourhood was very calm, it was nice."
That has all been destroyed.
ABC NEWS Verify archived two years' worth of building destruction throughout Gaza.
This is how Israel made so much of Gaza unliveable.
'Domicide' in Gaza
On October 9, two days after the Hamas attack — which killed an estimated 1,200 people in Israel, with some 250 taken hostage — then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant declared a "complete siege on Gaza", warning there would be "no electricity, no food, no fuel".
Later, telling Israeli troops on the Gaza border: "Gaza won't return to what it was before."
"We will eliminate everything. If it doesn't take one day, it will take a week, it will take weeks or even months — we will reach all places."
Just one month into Israel's onslaught, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing referred to Israel's bombardment of Gaza's neighbourhoods as "domicide" — the systematic or widespread destruction of homes.
In November 2023, Balakrishnan Rajagopal called for an end to "horrifying and massive attacks against civilian housing … in Gaza."
Israel has killed more than 67,100 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry — with many more believed to be buried under the rubble.
Both Yoav Gallant and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have since become wanted men by the International Criminal Court, accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Israel has rejected the allegations.
This week, there was a breakthrough with an agreed hostage exchange and a supposed path to "eternal peace" in the region.
Life under siege
Before October 7, Nour had big dreams of being a filmmaker, with a passion for art, painting, and culture.
"It was endless — the possibilities in front of me," she said. "Now, everything I dream of has reduced significantly to just hoping that I survive and that my family survives."
But even then, Nour was under no illusion about the reality of life in Gaza, under the heavy weight of blockade and occupation.
Israel's decades-long occupation — considered illegal under international law by the International Court of Justice in 2024 — had already placed strict limits on daily life.
"It's so easy for us to compare how life was before and think that things were good compared to horrors that we're facing daily here."
"The conditions were not perfect in any sense."
For her, the blockade was not only physical, but also cultural and mental — with restrictions on everything from movement and travel to what was allowed in and out of Gaza. It had seeped into every part of society.
"Setting up limitations to how we think, how further we see into the future, what we think about.
"When I saw the world outside, I just realised how besieged Gaza was and how frustrating these restrictions were."
But despite this, Nour created a vibrant life around her. Now, that is all but gone.
In her neighbourhood, close to Zeitoun and central Gaza City, were some of the tallest residential and commercial buildings in the enclave.
Al-Roya towers, the Tel el-Hawa precinct, Mushtaha Tower and Palestine, or "al-Watan" tower are now all gone.
Near Nour's home were three schools.
From those, only the shells of the buildings remain.
The Rashad Shawa cultural centre, home to Gaza's oldest theatre — with its domed skylight destroyed.
'Israel … knew how to attack our very dignity'
Israel has repeatedly claimed its bombing campaign has been to wipe out Hamas.
A landmark United Nations Commission of Inquiry report last month concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
"The extensive and systematic destruction of Palestinian homes and structures in Gaza … also supports the conclusion that the military operations were part of the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza," the report read.
Nour thought it was inevitable her home would eventually be hit.
"Homes are a source of dignity, and Israel deliberately knew how to attack our very dignity by destroying our houses."
Nour and her family evacuated on October 13, 2023 when they heard that the Israeli forces were planning to invade Gaza City.
At least 1.9 million people across the Gaza Strip have been displaced during the war, according to the UN.
Nour found out her home was destroyed from satellite images, after hearing local news reports that the neighbourhood was targeted.
"No-one could reach there … there were Israeli snipers all around the neighbourhood."
Just over a year later, Nour and her family made the 10-hour journey to return to what was left of their home.
"It was as if someone held it, picked it up, just completely ruined it, and put it back, full of sand and rubble."
Today, Nour's immediate and extended family remain forcibly displaced in Al Zawayda, south of Gaza City and near Deir al-Balah, unable to return home.
"I'm grateful that we have walls around us," she said. "I'm very aware that this is not something most of the population in Gaza has access to."
In July, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) began an offensive in Deir al-Balah. It had conducted air strikes in this part of Gaza previously, but it was the first time it had sent tanks. At the time, Israeli sources told Reuters the military believed hostages were being held by Hamas in Deir al-Balah.
'Virtually uninhabitable'
The bombing campaign by Israeli security forces has left the northern part of the Gaza Strip and Khan Younis in the south, "virtually uninhabitable," according to the Commission of Inquiry report.
It said between October 2023 and April 2025, nearly 70 per cent of all structural damage was concentrated in the governorates of Gaza City, Khan Younis and North Gaza.
Gaza City, where Nour grew up, has now seen 37,169 homes destroyed, according to an April estimate from the United Nations Satellite Centre.
But her city is not alone.
The Ministry of Public Works and Housing, run by the Palestinian Authority, estimated in a February 2025 report, that 92 per cent of Gazan homes had been damaged or destroyed.
The reality of this, for Nour, is heartbreak.
"Every single detail about home is wrapped in cruelty and loss."
To her, home is more than walls and belongings. As more of her neighbours have died or dispersed across Gaza, her sense of community has left with them.
"I miss having my own place, my things, my books I'd written notes in for years, the memories.
"I miss being able to recognise people in the street."
