RABAT, January 15. /TASS/. The hostilities in the Gaza Strip have caused the largest displacement of Palestinians since 1948, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

"This has been the largest displacement of the Palestinian people since 1948," the agency said, the WAFA news service reported. "An entire generation of children is traumatized, thousands have been killed, maimed, and orphaned."

"People live through the unliveable" in Gaza, said the agency, also known as UNRWA.

In 1948, Israel declared independence, setting in motion events that helped cause a mass exodus of Palestinians from their lands.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7. Hamas has cast the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel has declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and started a military operation there. Israel also strikes parts of Lebanon and Syria in retaliation for bombardments originating from these countries. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.