Geneva, May 19 (RHC)-- A new report says 3.4 million people were displaced in the Gaza Strip by Israel's war, a figure that represents 17 percent of total conflict displacements worldwide last year.

The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) reported that approximately 76 million individuals were forcefully displaced across 116 nations due to conflict and disasters, as the previous year concluded, marking an unprecedented number driven by wars in West Asia and the sub-Saharan Africa.

“The images from Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan are only the most recent in a trend towards increasing upheaval and dislocation of civilians across the globe,” Robert Piper, special adviser on solutions to internal displacement to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, wrote in the report.

Ukraine, which topped the list, saw 16.9 million people forced from their homes due Russia's special military operation, while Sudan, which accommodated the second-largest population of internally displaced individuals in one country, totaled to six million.  “But once the cameras turn away, all too often these people forced from their homes become invisible,” Piper noted.

In Gaza, humanitarian supplies to the southern city of Rafah, where most of the territory's population has sought refuge, were cut off last week after Israel launched a military operation in the area.  The UN's agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA said on Tuesday that nearly 450,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from Rafah since 6 May as Israel's invasion.

As of late December, the report indicated that approximately 83 percent of the population in Gaza were residing in internal displacement. 

The Norwegian Refugee Council, an NGO founded by the IDMC said that it has "never" in history witnessed such a large number of individuals being displaced from their residences and communities.  “We have never, ever recorded so many people forced away from their homes and communities.  It is a damning verdict on the failures of conflict prevention and peacemaking,” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council said.

The report said: "The conflict in Palestine contributed to an eight-fold increase in conflict displacements in the Middle East and North Africa in 2023 after three consecutive years of decline."