1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line.
| 1948 Arab–Israeli War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the 1948 Palestine war and the Arab-Israeli conflict | |||||||||
Captain Avraham "Bren" Adan raising the Ink Flag at Umm Rashrash, a site now in Eilat, marking the end of the war. | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
|
Before 26 May 1948: After 26 May 1948:
Foreign volunteers: Mahal |
Irregulars: | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
David Ben-Gurion Yisrael Galili Yaakov Dori Yigael Yadin Mickey Marcus † Yigal Allon Yitzhak Rabin David Shaltiel Moshe Dayan Shimon Avidan Moshe Carmel Yitzhak Sadeh |
Azzam Pasha King Farouk I Ahmed Ali al-Mwawi Muhammad Naguib King Abdallah I John Bagot Glubb Habis Majali Muzahim al-Pachachi Husni al-Za'im Haj Amin al-Husseini Hasan Salama † Fawzi al-Qawuqji | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
|
Israel: 29,677 (initially) 117,500 (finally) |
Egypt: 10,000 initially, rising to 20,000 Transjordan: 7,500–10,000 Iraq: 2,000 initially, rising to 15,000–18,000 Syria: 2,500–5,000 Lebanon: 436 Saudi Arabia: 800–1,200 (Egyptian command) Yemen: 300 Arab Liberation Army: 3,500–6,000 Total: 13,000 (initial) 51,100 (minimum) 63,500 (maximum) | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 6,373 killed (about 4,000 fighters and 2,400 civilians) |
Arab armies: 3,700–7,000 killed Palestinian Arabs: 3,000–13,000 killed (both fighters and civilians) | ||||||||
Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1920 creation of the British Mandate of Palestine, and in the context of Zionism and the mass migration of European Jews to Palestine, there had been tension and conflict between Arabs, Jews, and the British. British policies dissatisfied both Arabs and Jews. Arab opposition developed into the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, while the Jewish opposition developed into the 1944–1947 Jewish insurgency in Palestine.
The civil war began the day after the adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine 29 November 1947 – which planned to divide the territory into an Arab state, a Jewish state, and the Special International Regime encompassing the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. At the end of a series of offensives that began April 1948, in which Zionist forces had conquered cities and territories in Mandatory Palestine in preparation for the establishment of a Jewish state, Zionist leaders announced the Israeli Declaration of Independence 14 May 1948. The following morning, after the termination of the British Mandate, Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and expeditionary forces from Iraq entered Palestine. The invading forces took control of the Arab areas and attacked Israeli forces and several Jewish settlements. The 10 months of fighting took place mostly on the territory of the British Mandate and in the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon, interrupted by several truce periods.
As a result of the war, the State of Israel controlled the area that the UN had proposed for the Jewish state, as well as almost 60% of the area proposed for the Arab state, including the Jaffa, Lydda and Ramle area, Upper Galilee, some parts of the Negev and a wide strip along the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem road. Israel also took control of West Jerusalem, which was meant to be part of an international zone for Jerusalem and its environs. Transjordan took control of East Jerusalem and what became known as the West Bank, annexing it the following year. The territory which became the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt.
Over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes in the area that became Israel, marking the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem, in what they refer to as the Nakba (Arabic for "the catastrophe"). A similar number of Jews moved to Israel during the three years following the war, including 260,000 from the surrounding Arab states.