1948 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war[a] was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine.[13][14][15][16][17][18] During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the State of Israel, and over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled. It was the first war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab–Israeli conflict.
This article is about the entire conflict in Palestine in 1948. For the civil war phase, see 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine. For the international phase, see 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
The war had two main phases, the first being the 1947–1948 civil war, which began on 30 November 1947,[19] a day after the United Nations voted to adopt the Partition Plan for Palestine, which planned for the division of the territory into Jewish and Arab sovereign states. During this period the British still maintained a declining rule over Palestine and occasionally intervened in the violence.[20][21] Towards the end of the civil war phase, Zionist forces executed Plan Dalet, an offensive operation conquering territory for the planned establishment of a Jewish state.[22]
The second phase of the war began on 14 May 1948, with the termination of the British Mandate, and the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel. The following morning, the surrounding Arab armies invaded Palestine, beginning the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Egyptians advanced in the south-east while the Jordanian Arab Legion and Iraqi forces captured the central highlands. Syria and Lebanon fought with the Israeli forces in the north. The newly formed Israel Defense Forces managed to halt the Arab forces and in the following months began pushing them back and capturing territory. By the end of the war, the State of Israel had captured about 78% of former territory of the mandate, the Kingdom of Jordan had captured and later annexed the area that became the West Bank, and Egypt had captured the Gaza Strip. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which established the Green Line demarcating these territories.
During the war, massacres and acts of terror were conducted by and against both sides.
A campaign of massacres and violence against the Arab population, such as occurred at Lydda and Ramle and the Battle of Haifa, led to the expulsion and flight of over 700,000 Palestinians, with most of their urban areas being depopulated and destroyed. This violence and dispossession of the Palestinians is known today as the Nakba (Arabic for "the disaster")[23] and resulted in the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem.
Israeli usage of biological warfare
Research by Israeli historians Benny Morris and Benjamin Kedar show that during the 1948 war, Israel conducted a biological warfare operation codenamed "Cast Thy Bread". According to Morris and Kedar, the Haganah initially used typhoid bacteria to contaminate water wells in newly cleared Arab villages to prevent the population including militiamen from returning. Later, the biological warfare campaign expanded to include Jewish settlements that were in imminent danger of being captured by Arab troops and inhabited Arab towns not slated for capture. There were also plans to expand the biological warfare campaign into other Arab states including Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, but they were not carried out.[79]
In popular culture
A 2015 PBS documentary, A Wing and a Prayer, depicts the Al Schwimmer-led airborne smuggling missions to arm Israel.[108]
The 2021 fictional film Farha tells the story of a Palestinian girl in the 1948 War.[109]