لخّصلي

The 1947–1949 Palestine War was a war fought in the territories of the Mandate of Palestine under British rule. Known by Israelis as the War of Independence. It is the first war in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab conflict with Israel. During this war, the British Empire withdrew from Mandatory Palestine, which had been part of the Ottoman Empire until 1917. The war culminated in the founding of the State of Israel by the Jews and witnessed a complete demographic transformation of the area occupied by the Jews, displacing approximately 800,000 Palestinians and destroying most of their urban areas. . Many Palestinian Arabs ended up stateless, or displaced, either in the Palestinian areas or the surrounding Arab countries. Many of them, as well as their descendants, remain stateless and in refugee camps.

The lands under the control of the British administration before the war were divided between the State of Israel, which took about 78 percent of it, the Kingdom of Jordan then known as Transjordan, which later took over the area that became the West Bank, and Egypt, which took over the Gaza Strip, a territory Coastal on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, where the Arab League established the All-Palestine Government.

The war had two main phases. The first was the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, which began on November 30, 1947, the day after the United Nations voted to divide the mandate into Jewish and Arab states and internationalize Jerusalem, which the Jewish leadership accepted and objected to. Palestinian Arab leaders in addition to Arab countries. Historians have described this phase of the war as a civil, ethnic, or sectarian war between Jewish and Palestinian militias, supported by the Arab Liberation Army and the surrounding Arab countries. Described as guerrilla warfare and terrorism, it escalated at the end of March 1948, when the Jews launched an attack and achieved the result of defeating the Palestinians in major campaigns and battles, and established clear front lines. During this period, the British maintained a declining rule over Palestine, occasionally intervening in violence.

The British Empire scheduled its withdrawal and renunciation of all claims to Palestine on May 14, 1948. On that day, when the last British troops and personnel left Haifa, the Jewish leadership in Palestine announced the establishment of the State of Israel. This declaration was followed by the immediate invasion of Palestine by the surrounding Arab armies and expeditionary forces in order to prevent the establishment of Israel and to aid the Palestinian Arabs who were on the losing end at that point, with a large number of the population fleeing or being forced out by Jewish militias.

The invasion marked the beginning of the second phase of the war, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The Egyptians advanced along the southern coastal strip and stopped at Ashdod. The Jordanian Arab Legion and Iraqi forces took control of the central highlands of Palestine. Syria and Lebanon fought several skirmishes with Israeli forces in the north. Jewish militias, organized into the modern Israel Defense Forces, were able to stop the Arab forces. The following months witnessed violent clashes between the Israeli army and the Arab armies, which were slowly retreating. The Jordanian and Iraqi army was able to control most of the central highlands of Palestine and seize East Jerusalem, including the Old City. The area liberated by Egypt was limited to the Gaza Strip and a small enclave surrounded by Israeli forces in Fallujah.

In October 1948, Israeli forces crossed Lebanese territory, stormed Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and surrounded Egyptian forces near Gaza City. The last military activity occurred in March 1949 when Israeli forces captured the Negev Desert and reached the Red Sea. In 1949, Israel signed separate armistices with Egypt on February 24, Lebanon on March 23, Transjordan on April 3, and Syria on July 20. During this period, the process of displacement and expulsion of Palestinian Arabs continued.

In the three years following the war, approximately 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel from Europe and Arab lands, with a third of them leaving or being expelled from their countries in the Middle East. These refugees were integrated into Israel under the Million Plan.