1948 Arab–Israeli War facts for kids
Quick facts for kids 1948 Arab–Israeli War |
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| Part of the 1948 Palestine war | |||||||||
.jpg) Captain Avraham "Bren" Adan raising the Ink Flag at Umm Rashrash (a site now in Eilat), marking the end of the war |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Before 26 May 1948:
After 26 May 1948:
Foreign volunteers: Mahal |
Irregulars:  Holy War Army |
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| 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 |
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| 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) |
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| 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) |
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The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war.
Contents
History
The war formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had been issued earlier that day, and a military coalition of Arab states entered the territory of British Palestine in the morning of 15 May.
The day after the 29 November 1947 adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine – which planned to divide Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state, and the Special International Regime encompassing the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem – seven Jews were killed in the Fajja bus attacks by Arab militants in an incident regarded as the first in the civil war. This attack was retaliation to the assassination of five members of an Arab family, suspected of being British informants, by Lehi on 19 November. There had been tension and conflict between Arabs, Jews, and the British since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1920 creation of the British Mandate of Palestine. 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.
On 15 May 1948, the civil war transformed into a conflict between Israel and the Arab states following the Israeli Declaration of Independence the previous day. Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and expeditionary forces from Iraq entered Palestine. The invading forces took control of the Arab areas and immediately 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, and the Egyptian military took control of the Gaza Strip. At the Jericho Conference on 1 December 1948, 2,000 Palestinian delegates called for unification of Palestine and Transjordan as a step toward full Arab unity. The conflict triggered significant demographic change throughout the Middle East. Around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes in the area that became Israel, and they became Palestinian refugees in what they refer to as the Nakba ("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.
Aftermath
1949 Armistice Agreements
Boundaries defined in the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine:
Armistice Demarcation Lines of 1949 (Green Line):
In 1949, Israel signed separate armistices with Egypt on 24 February, Lebanon on 23 March, Transjordan on 3 April, and Syria on 20 July. The Armistice Demarcation Lines, as set by the agreements, saw the territory under Israeli control encompassing approximately three-quarters of the prior British administered Mandate as it stood after Transjordan's independence in 1946. Israel controlled territories of about one-third more than was allocated to the Jewish State under the UN partition proposal. After the armistices, Israel had control over 78% of the territory comprising former Mandatory Palestine or some 21,000 km2 (8,000 sq mi), including the entire Galilee and Jezreel Valley in the north, the whole Negev in south, West Jerusalem and the coastal plain in the center.
The armistice lines were known afterwards as the "Green Line". The Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) were occupied by Egypt and Transjordan respectively. The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization and Mixed Armistice Commissions were set up to monitor ceasefires, supervise the armistice agreements, to prevent isolated incidents from escalating, and assist other UN peacekeeping operations in the region.
Just before the signing of the Israel-Transjordan armistice agreement, general Yigal Allon proposed a military offensive to conquer the West Bank up to the Jordan River as the natural, defensible border of the state. Ben-Gurion refused, although he was aware that the IDF was militarily strong enough to carry out the conquest. He feared the reaction of Western powers and wanted to maintain good relations with the United States and not to provoke the British. More, the results of the war were already satisfactory and Israeli leaders had to build a state.
Casualties
Israel lost 6,373 of its people, about 1% of its population at the time, in the war. About 4,000 were soldiers and the rest were civilians. Around 2,000 were Holocaust survivors.
The exact number of Arab casualties is unknown. One estimate places the Arab death toll at 7,000, including 3,000 Palestinians, 2,000 Egyptians, 1,000 Jordanians, and 1,000 Syrians. In 1958, Palestinian historian Aref al-Aref calculated that the Arab armies' combined losses amounted to 3,700, with Egypt losing 961 regular and 200 irregular soldiers and Transjordan losing 362 regulars and 200 irregulars. According to Henry Laurens, the Palestinians suffered double the Jewish losses, with 13,000 dead, 1,953 of whom are known to have died in combat situations. Of the remainder, 4,004 remain nameless but the place, tally and date of their death is known, and a further 7,043, for whom only the place of death is known, not their identities nor the date of their death. According to Laurens, the largest part of Palestinian casualties consisted of non-combatants and corresponds to the successful operations of the Israelis.
Demographic outcome in Palestine
During the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War that followed, around 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes, out of approximately 1,200,000 Arabs living in former British Mandate of Palestine, a displacement known to Palestinians as the Nakba. In 1951, the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine estimated that the number of Palestinian refugees displaced from Israel was 711,000.
This number did not include displaced Palestinians inside Israeli-held territory. More than 400 Arab villages, and about ten Jewish villages and neighbourhoods, were depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict, most of them during 1948. According to estimate based on earlier census, the total Muslim population in Palestine was 1,143,336 in 1947. The causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus are a controversial topic among historians. After the war, around 156,000 Arabs remained in Israel and became Israeli citizens.
Displaced Palestinian Arabs, known as Palestinian refugees, were settled in Palestinian refugee camps throughout the Arab world. The United Nations established UNRWA as a relief and human development agency tasked with providing humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees. Arab nations refused to absorb Palestinian refugees, instead keeping them in refugee camps while insisting that they be allowed to return.
Refugee status was also passed on to their descendants, who were also largely denied citizenship in Arab states, except in Transjordan. The Arab League instructed its members to deny Palestinians citizenship "to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right of return to their homeland." More than 1.4 million Palestinians still live in 58 recognised refugee camps, while more than 5 million Palestinians live outside Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Palestinian refugees and displaced persons and the lack of a Palestinian right of return remain major issues in the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Jewish immigration from Europe and the Arab world
In the three years from May 1948 to the end of 1951, 700,000 Jews settled in Israel, mainly along the borders and in former Arab lands, doubling the Jewish population there. Of these, upwards of 300,000 arrived from Asian and North African states.
Jewish immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries left for numerous reasons. The war's outcome had exacerbated Arab hostilities to local Jewish communities. News of the victory aroused messianic expectations in Libya and Yemen; Zionism had taken root in many countries; active incentives for making aliyah formed a key part of Israeli policy; and better economic prospects and security were to be expected from a Jewish state. Some Arab governments, Egypt, for example, held their Jewish communities hostage at times. Persecution, political instability, and news of a number of violent pogroms also played a role. Some 800,000–1,000,000 Jews eventually left the Arab world over the next three decades as a result of these various factors. An estimated 650,000 of the departees settled in Israel.
Images for kids
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A Palmach M4 Sherman tank leading a convoy
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An Israeli Avia S-199, June 1948
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King Abdullah outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 29 May 1948, the day after Jordanian forces took control of the Old City in the Battle for Jerusalem
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Sherman tanks of the Israeli 8th Armoured Brigade, 1948
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The Israeli Armored Corps operated two Cromwell tanks
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IDF soldiers of the Samson's Foxes unit advance in a captured Egyptian Bren Gun carrier.
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Vickers light tanks in the desert
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Arab offensive, 15 May – 10 June 1948
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Israeli soldiers in Nirim
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Mathematics professor Michael Fekete, the Provost of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with his water quota, during the siege of Jerusalem
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Israeli soldiers in Afula
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Syrian R-35 light tank destroyed at Degania Alef
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Kaukji, the Arab Liberation Army commander
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An Egyptian Spitfire shot down over Tel Aviv on 15 May 1948
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An Avia S-199, Israel's 1st fighter aircraft
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Israeli B-17s in flight
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Northland in Greenland circa 1944 which became the Israeli INS Eilat
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The Palestine Military Situation, 11 June 1948. Truman Papers
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Altalena burning near Tel Aviv beach
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UN Palestine mediator, Folke Bernadotte, assassinated in September 1948 by the militant group Lehi
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An Egyptian artillery piece captured by battalion 53 of the Givati Brigade.
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Israeli soldiers in Lod (Lydda) or Ramle
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Israeli armoured vehicles in Lydda airport after the town's capture by Israeli forces
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Beit Horon Battalion soldiers in the Russian Compound in Jerusalem, 1948
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October battles
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An Israeli mortar team outside Safsaf, October 1948
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Israeli troops occupying abandoned Egyptian trenches at Huleiqat, October 1948
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An IDF artillery unit in the Negev
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An Israeli convoy in the Negev during Operation Horev
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The funeral of a Royal Air Force pilot killed during a clash with the Israeli Air Force
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Building the Burma Road
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A bulldozer tows a truck on the "Burma road", June 1948
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Area map
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Jordanian artillery shelling Jerusalem in 1948
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Arab Legion soldier standing in ruins of the most sacred Synagogue, the "Hurva", Old City.
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Jewish residents of Jerusalem fleeing during the battle for the Old City
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See also
In Spanish: Guerra árabe-israelí de 1948 para niños
- List of battles and operations in the 1948 Palestine war
- List of modern conflicts in the Middle East
