1948 Arab–Israeli War

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. In 1920, the Arab leaders were very disappointed with Britain. In 1916, the British commander-in-chief in Cairo had made an agreement with the Emir of Mecca: if the Arabs rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, the British would provide them with arms and money and support the formation of an independent Arab state. Around 30,000 older rifles and a smaller amount of modern weapons were supplied by the British, and a very large area from the Red Sea to Damascus was conquered. Britain backtracked from its promise that an independent Arab state would be formed. In 1920, Britain let French troops attack the Arab Kingdom of Syria, crushing its army and overthrowing its government. 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 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of a plan to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, and the City of Jerusalem. The General Assembly resolution on Partition was greeted with overwhelming joy in Jewish communities and widespread outrage in the Arab world. In Palestine, violence erupted almost immediately, feeding into a spiral of reprisals and counter-reprisals. The British refrained from intervening as tensions boiled over into a low-level conflict that quickly escalated into a full-scale civil war. From January onwards, operations became increasingly militarised, with the intervention of a number of Arab Liberation Army regiments inside Palestine, each active in a variety of distinct sectors around the different coastal towns. They consolidated their presence in Galilee and Samaria. Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni came from Egypt with several hundred men of the Army of the Holy War. Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, al-Husayni organised the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem. To counter this, the Yishuv authorities tried to supply the city with convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but the operation became more and more impractical as the number of casualties in the relief convoys surged. By March, Al-Hussayni's tactic had paid off. Almost all of Haganah's armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and hundreds of Haganah members who had tried to bring supplies into the city were killed. The situation for those who dwelt in the Jewish settlements in the highly isolated Negev and north of Galilee was even more critical. While the Jewish population had received strict orders requiring them to hold their ground everywhere at all costs, the Arab population was more affected by the general conditions of insecurity to which the country was exposed. Up to 100,000 Arabs, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres eastwards. This situation caused the United States to withdraw its support for the Partition Plan, encouraging the Arab League to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could put an end to the plan. However, the British decided on 7 February 1948 to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine by Transjordan. Although doubt took hold among Yishuv supporters, their apparent defeats were due more to their wait-and-see policy than to weakness. David Ben-Gurion reorganised Haganah and made conscription obligatory. Every Jewish man and woman in the country had to receive military training. Thanks to funds raised by Golda Meir from sympathisers in the United States, and Stalin's decision to support the Zionist cause, the Jewish representatives of Palestine were able to sign very important armament contracts in the East. Other Haganah agents recovered stockpiles from the Second World War, which helped improve the army's equipment and logistics. Operation Balak allowed arms and other equipment to be transported for the first time by the end of March. tank leading a convoy Ben-Gurion invested Yigael Yadin with the responsibility to come up with a plan of offence whose timing was related to the foreseeable evacuation of British forces. This strategy, called Plan Dalet, was readied by March and implemented towards the end of April. A separate plan, Operation Nachshon, was devised to lift the siege of Jerusalem. The operation was successful, and enough foodstuffs to last two months were trucked into Jerusalem for distribution to the Jewish population. The success of the operation was assisted by the death of al-Husayni in combat. During this time, fighters from Irgun and Lehi massacred a substantial number of Palestinians at Deir Yassin. The attack was widely publicized and had a deep impact on the morale of the Palestinian population and contributed to generate the exodus of the Arab population. At the same time, the Arab Liberation Army was roundly defeated at Mishmar HaEmek in its first large-scale operation, coinciding with the loss of their Druze allies through defection. With the implementation of Plan Dalet, the Haganah, Palmach and Irgun forces began conquering mixed zones. The Palestinian Arab society was shaken as Tiberias, Haifa, Safed, Beisan, Jaffa and Acre were all captured and more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled. The British had essentially withdrawn their troops. This pushed the leaders of the neighbouring Arab states to intervene, but they were not fully prepared, and could not assemble sufficient forces to turn the tide. The majority of Palestinian Arab hopes lay with the Arab Legion of Transjordan's monarch, King Abdullah I, but he had no intention of creating a Palestinian Arab-run state, since he hoped to annex as much of the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine as he could. He was playing a double game, being just as much in contact with the Jewish authorities as with the Arab League. In preparation for the offensive, Haganah successfully launched Operations Yiftah and Ben-'Ami to secure the Jewish settlements of Galilee, and Operation Kilshon, which created a united front around Jerusalem. The inconclusive meeting between Golda Meir and Abdullah I, followed by the Kfar Etzion massacre on 13 May by the Arab Legion led to predictions that the battle for Jerusalem would be merciless. On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel and the 1948 Palestine war entered its second phase with the intervention of the Arab state armies and the beginning of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Armed forces By September 1947, the Haganah had "10,489 rifles, 702 light machine-guns, 2,666 submachine guns, 186 medium machine-guns, 672 two-inch mortars and 92 three-inch (76 mm) mortars". The Yishuv managed clandestinely to amass arms and military equipment abroad for transfer to Palestine once the British blockade was lifted. In the United States, Yishuv agents purchased three Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, one of which bombed Cairo in July 1948, some Curtiss C-46 Commando transport planes, and dozens of half-tracks, which were repainted and defined as "agricultural equipment". In Western Europe, Haganah agents amassed fifty 65mm French mountain guns, twelve 120mm mortars, ten H-35 light tanks, and a large number of half-tracks. By mid-May or thereabouts the Yishuv had purchased from Czechoslovakia 25 Avia S-199 fighters (an inferior version of the Messerschmitt Bf 109), 200 heavy machine guns, 5,021 light machine guns, 24,500 rifles, and 52 million rounds of ammunition, enough to equip all units, but short of heavy arms. The airborne arms smuggling missions from Czechoslovakia were codenamed Operation Balak. The airborne smuggling missions were carried out by mostly American aviators – Jews and non-Jews – led by ex-U.S. Air Transport Command flight engineer Al Schwimmer. Schwimmer's operation also included recruiting and training fighter pilots such as Lou Lenart, commander of the first Israeli air assault against the Arabs. Several Americans, including Schwimmer, were later prosecuted by the U.S. government for violating the Neutrality Act of 1939. Arms production The Yishuv also had "a relatively advanced arms producing capacity", that between October 1947 and July 1948 "produced 3 million 9 mm bullets, 150,000 Mills grenades, 16,000 submachine guns (Sten Guns) and 210 three-inch (76 mm) mortars", Manpower In November 1947, the Haganah was an underground paramilitary force that had existed as a highly organised, national force, since the Arab riots of 1920–21, and throughout the riots of 1929, Great Uprising of 1936–39, and World War II. It had a mobile force, the HISH, which had 2,000 full-time fighters (men and women) and 10,000 reservists (all aged between 18 and 25) and an elite unit, the Palmach composed of 2,100 fighters and 1,000 reservists. The reservists trained three or four days a month and went back to civilian life the rest of the time. These mobile forces could rely on a garrison force, the HIM (Heil Mishmar, lit. Guard Corps), composed of people aged over 25. The Yishuv's total strength was around 35,000 with 15,000 to 18,000 fighters and a garrison force of roughly 20,000. There were also several thousand men and women who had served in the British Army in World War II who did not serve in any of the underground militias but would provide valuable military experience during the war. Walid Khalidi says the Yishuv had the additional forces of the Jewish Settlement Police, numbering some 12,000, the Gadna Youth Battalions, and the armed settlers. Few of the units had been trained by December 1947. On 30 March, the call-up was extended to men and single women aged between 26 and 35. Five days later, a General Mobilization order was issued for all men under 40. By March 1948, the Yishuv had a numerical superiority, with 35,780 mobilised and deployed fighters for the Haganah, 3,000 men under Lehi and Irgun, and a few thousand armed settlers. Irgun was eventually absorbed into the Jewish Defence Army. The activities of Irgun was monitored by MI5, which found that Irgun was "involved or implicated in numerous acts of terrorism" during the end years of the British mandate in Palestine such as the attacks on trains and the kidnapping of British servicemen. The effective number of Arab combatants was listed as growing to 12,000 by some historians while others calculate an eventual total Arab strength of approximately 23,500 troops, and with this being more of less or roughly equal to that of the Yishuv. However, as Israel mobilised most of its most able citizens during the war while the Arab troops were only a small percentage of its far greater population, the strength of the Yishuv grew steadily and dramatically during the war. ==Political objectives==

Yishuv Yishuv's aims evolved during the war. Mobilisation for a total war was organised. Initially, the aim was "simple and modest": to survive the assaults of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states. "The Zionist leaders deeply, genuinely, feared a Middle Eastern reenactment of the Holocaust, which had just ended; the Arabs' public rhetoric reinforced these fears". As the war progressed, the aim of expanding the Jewish state beyond the UN partition borders appeared: first to incorporate clusters of isolated Jewish settlements and later to add more territories to the state and give it defensible borders. A third and further aim that emerged among the political and military leaders after four or five months was to "reduce the size of Israel's prospective large and hostile Arab minority, seen as a potential powerful fifth column, by belligerency and expulsion". Plan Dalet, or Plan D, (, Tokhnit dalet) was a plan worked out by the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary group and the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, in autumn 1947 to spring 1948, which was sent to Haganah units in early March 1948. The intent of Plan Dalet is subject to much controversy, with historians on the one extreme asserting that it was entirely defensive, and historians on the other extreme asserting that the plan aimed at maximum conquest and expulsion of the Palestinians. According to Walid Khalidi and Ilan Pappé, its purpose was to conquer as much of Palestine and to expel as many Palestinians as possible, though according to Benny Morris there was no such intent. In his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappé asserts that Plan Dalet was a "blueprint for ethnic cleansing" with the aim of reducing both rural and urban areas of Palestine. According to Yoav Gelber, the plan specified that in case of resistance, the population of conquered villages was to be expelled outside the borders of the Jewish state. If no resistance was met, the residents could stay put, under military rule. According to Morris, Plan D called for occupying the areas within the UN sponsored Jewish state, several concentrations of Jewish population outside those areas (West Jerusalem and Western Galilee), and areas along the roads where the invading Arab armies were expected to attack. The Yishuv perceived the peril of an Arab invasion as threatening its very existence. Having no real knowledge of the Arabs' true military capabilities, the Jews took Arab propaganda literally, preparing for the worst and reacting accordingly. His conclusions were that they had no chance of victory and that an invasion of the Arab regular armies was mandatory. In April with the Palestinian defeat, the refugees coming from Palestine and the pressure of their public opinion, the Arab leaders decided to invade Palestine. • the Arab states find themselves compelled to intervene in order to restore law and order and to check further bloodshed. • the Mandate over Palestine has come to an end, leaving no legally constituted authority. • the only solution of the Palestine problem is the establishment of a unitary Palestinian state. British diplomat Alec Kirkbride wrote in his 1976 memoirs about a conversation with the Arab League's secretary-general Azzam Pasha a week before the armies marched: "...when I asked him for his estimate of the size of the Jewish forces, [he] waved his hands and said: 'It does not matter how many there are. We will sweep them into the sea.'" However, Kirkbride notes that Azzam was nervous about the impending conflict; he had not slept the night before. According to Gelber, the Arab countries were "drawn into the war by the collapse of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab Liberation Army [and] the Arab governments' primary goal was preventing the Palestinian Arabs' total ruin and the flooding of their own countries by more refugees. According to their own perception, had the invasion not taken place, there was no Arab force in Palestine capable of checking the Haganah's offensive". King Abdullah I of Transjordan King Abdullah was the commander of the Arab Legion, the strongest Arab army involved in the war according to Eugene Rogan and Avi Shlaim in 2007. (In contrast, Morris wrote in 2008 that the Egyptian army was the most powerful and threatening army.) The Arab Legion had about 10,000 soldiers, trained and commanded by British officers. , 29 May 1948, the day after Jordanian forces took control of the Old City in the Battle for Jerusalem In 1946–47, Abdullah said that he had no intention to "resist or impede the partition of Palestine and creation of a Jewish state." Ideally, Abdullah would have liked to annex all of Palestine, but he was prepared to compromise. He supported the partition, intending that the West Bank area of the British Mandate allocated for the Arab state be annexed to Jordan. Abdullah held secret meetings with the Jewish Agency (at which the future Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was among the delegates) that reached an agreement of Jewish non-interference with Jordanian annexation of the West Bank (although Abdullah failed in his goal of acquiring an outlet to the Mediterranean Sea through the Negev desert) and of Jordanian agreement not to attack the area of the Jewish state contained in the United Nations partition resolution (in which Jerusalem was given neither to the Arab nor the Jewish state, but was to be an internationally administered area). In order to keep their support to his plan of annexation of the Arab State, Abdullah promised to the British he would not attack the Jewish State. The neighbouring Arab states pressured Abdullah into joining them in an "all-Arab military invasion" against the newly created State of Israel, that he used to restore his prestige in the Arab world, which had grown suspicious of his relatively good relationship with Western and Jewish leaders. On 23 May Abdullah told the French consul in Amman that he "was determined to fight Zionism and prevent the establishment of an Israeli state on the border of his kingdom". Abdullah's role in this war became substantial. He saw himself as the "supreme commander of the Arab forces" and "persuaded the Arab League to appoint him" to this position. Through his leadership, the Arabs fought the 1948 war to meet Abdullah's political goals. Other Arab states King Farouk of Egypt was anxious to prevent Abdullah from being seen as the main champion of the Arab world in Palestine, which he feared might damage his own leadership aspirations of the Arab world. using a term frequent in Haganah reports of Palestinian fighters. According to a 2019 study, "senior British intelligence, military officers and diplomats in Cairo were deeply involved in a covert scheme to drive the King to participate in the Arab states' war coalition against Israel." These intelligence officers acted without the approval or knowledge of the British government. Abdullah regarded the attempt to revive al-Husayni's Holy War Army as a challenge to his authority and all armed bodies operating in the areas controlled by the Arab Legion were disbanded. Glubb Pasha carried out the order ruthlessly and efficiently. ==Initial line-up of forces==

Military assessments Though the State of Israel faced the armies of multiple neighbouring Arab countries, due to previous battles the Palestinians themselves hardly existed as a military force by the middle of May. British intelligence and the Arab League reached similar conclusions. The British Foreign Office and the CIA believed that the Arab states would finally win in case of war. Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld says the sides were fairly evenly matched in manpower at the beginning of the war, but the ratio shifted in Israel's favor as it went on. In May, Egyptian generals told their government that the invasion would be "a parade without any risks" and Tel Aviv would be taken "in two weeks." Egypt, Iraq, and Syria all possessed air forces, Egypt and Syria had tanks, and all had some modern artillery. Initially, the Haganah had no heavy machine guns, artillery, armoured vehicles, anti-tank or anti-aircraft weapons, On 12 May, three days before the invasion, David Ben-Gurion was told by his chief military advisers (who over-estimated the size of the Arab armies and the numbers and efficiency of the troops who would be committed – much as the Arab generals tended to exaggerate Jewish fighters' strength) that Israel's chances of winning a war against the Arab states were only about even. Mobilization of the Yishuv began during the civil war period with conscription instituted. Following independence it was initially Israel's main military force. The Haganah was joined by two smaller independent militias, the Irgun and Lehi. They consisted of political dissidents from the mainstream leadership and at times had come into conflict with the Haganah, but fought alongside it during the civil war and early stages of the war with the Arab states. On 26 May 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion issued an order for the formation of the Israel Defense Forces as the unified military force of Israel, which was ratified by the Israeli cabinet on 31 May. The order called for the disbandment of all other Jewish armed forces. Subsequently, the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi were merged into the IDF, although the Irgun and Lehi retained independent presences in Jerusalem and the Irgun recruits into the IDF were initially placed together in their own units. After the Altalena Affair, an attempt by the Irgun to import arms in June 1948 that resulted in clashes with the IDF, the independent Irgun units within the IDF were broken up, with the soldiers dispersed between various units. Following the assassination of Folke Bernadotte by Lehi in September 1948, the Israeli government lost its last remaining tolerance for independent militias and broke up the Irgun and Lehi remnants in Jerusalem. Training and experience gained by volunteers from the Yishuv in the British Armed Forces during World War II was decisive in building a new military. Some 30,000 Jews from Palestine served in the British military during the war. The military training and discipline, organizational skills, and combat experience they gained were of great benefit in building the IDF and fighting the war. They proved important to the Haganah's efforts to train its personnel and helped establish the IDF's General Staff, its artillery, engineering, logistics, and medical services, as well as the fledgling air force and navy. Veterans of the Jewish Brigade, a British Army brigade group composed primarily of Jews from the Yishuv that fought in the Italian campaign towards the end of the war, were heavily represented in building the IDF, with many Jewish Brigade veterans serving as officers during the war. A handful of Yishuv volunteers served as aircrews, including pilots, and hundreds more as ground crews in the Royal Air Force, which would benefit Israel's new air force. In addition, thousands of foreign volunteers, mostly World War II veterans of Allied militaries, served in the IDF during the war in what became known as Mahal, bringing their skills and experience to the IDF. Most were Jews, but some non-Jews also served. They were both ideologically-motivated volunteers and mercenaries. Most of Israel's air and ground crews were Mahal volunteers from English-speaking countries, resulting in English being the main language of the Israeli Air Force during the war. Other Mahal volunteers included sailors, tank crews, doctors, and logistics and communications personnel. Sources disagree about the quantity of arms at the Yishuv's disposal at the end of the Mandate. According to Efraim Karsh before the arrival shipments from Czechoslovakia as part of Operation Balak, there was roughly one weapon for every three fighters, and even the Palmach could arm only two out of every three of its active members. According to Walid Khalidi, "the arms at the disposal of these forces were plentiful". Yishuv forces were organized in nine brigades, and their numbers grew following Israeli independence, eventually expanding to twelve brigades. Although both sides increased their manpower over the first few months of the war, the Israeli forces grew steadily as a result of the progressive mobilisation of Israeli society and the influx of an average of 10,300 immigrants each month. By the end of 1948, the Israel Defense Forces had 88,033 soldiers, including 60,000 combat soldiers. France authorised Air France to transport cargo to Tel Aviv on 13 May. In addition to arms shipments from abroad, Israel's local domestic arms industry produced substantial quantities of weapons and ammunition, as well as dozens of makeshift armored cars and trucks. Israeli agents in Italy subsequently purchased 32 Sherman tanks, which arrived in three shipments from November 1948 to January 1949. Although still in serviceable condition, the tanks' gun barrels had been destroyed to prevent them from firing, so it was decided to install Krupp field guns that had been purchased from Switzerland in September 1948 with the intent to use them for field artillery, but the conversion proved complicated and it is likely that none of the Shermans with Krupp guns were ready until the war was over. However, three 75mm M3 tank guns were also purchased in Italy and these were fitted onto three Shermans in time for them to take part in combat. of the Israeli 8th Armoured Brigade, 1948 to the right and a Sherman tank to the left. In addition to its fleet of Shermans, the Israeli Armored Corps operated two Cromwell tanks. The equipment obtained included twelve armored cars, four of which had cannons, and three half-tracks. soldiers of the Samson's Foxes unit advance in a captured Egyptian Bren Gun carrier. After the first truce, by July 1948, the Israelis had established an air force, a navy, and a tank battalion. The airborne arms smuggling missions from Czechoslovakia were codenamed Operation Balak. Arab forces At the invasion, in addition to the irregular Palestinian militia groups, the five Arab states that joined the war were Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq sending expeditionary forces of their regular armies. Additional contingents came from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. On the eve of war, the available number of Arab troops likely to be committed was between 23,500 and 26,500 (10,000 Egyptians, 4,500 Jordanians, 3,000 Iraqis, 3,000–6,000 Syrians, 2,000 ALA volunteers, 1,000 Lebanese, and several hundred Saudis), in addition to the irregular Palestinians already present. These Arab forces had been trained by British and French instructors; this was particularly true of Jordan's Arab Legion under command of Lt Gen Sir John Bagot Glubb (known as Glubb Pasha). Syria bought a quantity of small arms for the Arab Liberation Army from Czechoslovakia, but the shipment never arrived due to Haganah force intervention. Arab states (right), commander of the Jordanian Arab Legion with soldiers in July 1948 Jordan's Arab Legion was considered the most effective Arab force. Armed, trained and commanded by British officers, this 8,000–12,000 strong force was organised in four infantry/mechanised regiments supported by some forty artillery pieces and seventy-five armoured cars. Until January 1948, it was reinforced by the 3,000-strong Transjordan Frontier Force. As many as 48 British officers served in the Arab Legion. The commander of the Arab Legion was a British officer, John Bagot Glubb, also known as "Glubb Pasha". The Legion was organized into four brigades as follows: The Arab Legion joined the war in May 1948, but fought only in the area that King Abdullah wanted to secure for Jordan: the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. France prevented a large sale of arms by a Swiss company to Ethiopia, brokered by the UK foreign office, which was actually destined for Egypt and Jordan, and denied a British request at the end of April to land a squadron of British aircraft on its way to Transjordan, and applied diplomatic pressure on Belgium to suspend arms sales to the Arab states. In 1948, Iraq's army had 21,000 men in twelve brigades and the Iraqi Air Force had 100 planes, mostly British. Initially the Iraqis committed around 3,000 men to the war effort, including four infantry brigades, one armoured battalion and support personnel. These were to operate under Jordanian guidance. The first Iraqi forces to be deployed reached Jordan in April 1948 under the command of Gen. Nur ad-Din Mahmud. In 1948, Egypt's army was able to put a maximum of around 40,000 men into the field, 80% of its military-age male population were unfit for military service, and its embryonic logistics system was limited in its ability to support ground forces beyond its borders. Initially, an expeditionary force of 10,000 men was sent to Palestine under the command of Maj. Gen. Ahmed Ali al-Mwawi. This consisted of five infantry battalions, one armoured battalion equipped with British Light Tank Mk VI and Matilda tanks, one battalion of sixteen 25-pounder guns, a battalion of eight 6-pounder guns and one medium-machine-gun battalion with supporting troops. The Egyptian Air Force had over thirty Spitfires, four Hawker Hurricanes and twenty C47s modified into crude bombers. Syria had 12,000 soldiers at the beginning of the 1948 War, grouped into three infantry brigades and an armoured force of approximately battalion size. The Syrian Air Force had forty-three planes, thirty-seven operational, of which approximately the ten newest were World War II–generation models. France suspended arms sales to Syria, notwithstanding already-signed contracts. A token force of 436 soldiers crossed into the northern Galilee, seized two villages after a small skirmish, and withdrew. By the time of the second truce, the Egyptians had 20,000 men in the field in thirteen battalions equipped with 135 tanks and 90 artillery pieces. During the first truce, the Iraqis increased their force to about 10,000. Ultimately, the Iraqi expeditionary force numbered around 18,000 men. Saudi Arabia sent hundreds of volunteers to join the Arab forces. In February 1948, around 800 tribesmen had gathered near Aqaba to invade the Negev, but crossed to Egypt after Saudi rival King Abdallah denied them permission to pass through Jordanian territory. The Saudi troops were attached to the Egyptian command throughout the war, and estimates of their total strength ranged up to 1,200. By July 1948, the Saudis constituted three brigades within the Egyptian expeditionary force, and were stationed as guards between Gaza city and Rafah. This area came under heavy aerial bombardment during Operation Yoav in October, and faced a land assault beginning in late December which culminated in the Battle of Rafah in early January of the new year. With the subsequent armistice of 24 February 1949 and evacuation of almost 4,000 Arab soldiers and civilians from Gaza, the Saudi contingent withdrew through Arish and returned to Saudi Arabia. During the first truce, Sudan sent six companies of regular troops to fight alongside the Egyptians. Yemen also committed a small expeditionary force to the war effort, and contingents from Morocco joined the Arab armies as well. ==Course of the war==

At the last moment, several Arab leaders, to avert catastrophe – secretly appealed to the British to hold on in Palestine for at least another year. First phase: 15 May – 11 June 1948 Dorot in the Negev, April 1948. The armored car is based on CMP-15 truck. The car has brought supplies to the kibbutz. Children of kibbutzim in the Negev were later evacuated by these cars ahead of the Egyptian advance. The civil war in Mandatory Palestine became a war between separate states with the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948, a few hours before the termination of the British Mandate of Palestine at midnight. The following morning, the regular armies of neighbouring Arab statesEgypt, Transjordan and Syriainvaded the region. Through Plan Dalet, Zionist forces had already, from 1 April down to 14 May, conducted 8 of their 13 full-scale military operations outside of the area allotted to a Jewish state by partition, and the operational commander Yigal Allon later stated that had it not been for the Arab invasion, Haganah forces would have reached 'the natural borders of western Israel.' By 15 May 1948, when the Mandate formally expired and the State of Israel came into being, Israel controlled two contiguous and connected strips of Palestine which contained the main Jewish settlement concentrations. One ran along the coastal plain from Rosh Hanikra to Rehovot, with two additional appendages emanating from its southern end, one running to West Jerusalem and the other to the Jewish settlement bloc in the Negev which was connected by a sliver of land near Negba. The other strip was in the Galilee Panhandle, Jordan Valley, and Beit She'an Valley. These two strips were narrowly linked by the Israeli-held Jezreel Valley. The Arabs held the rest of Palestine, including a small Arab Liberation Army-supported enclave just south of Haifa. Although the Arab invasion was denounced by the United States, the Soviet Union, and UN secretary-general Trygve Lie, it found support from the Republic of China and other UN member states. At the Arab League meeting in Damascus on 11–13 May, Abdullah rejected the plan, which served Syrian interests, using the fact his allies were afraid to go to war without his army. He proposed that the Iraqis attack the Jezreel valley and the Arab Legion enter Ramallah and Nablus and link with the Egyptian army at Hebron, Intelligence provided by the French consulate in Jerusalem on 12 May 1948 on the Arab armies' invading forces and their revised plan to invade the new state contributed to Israel's success in withstanding the Arab invasion. Southern front – Negev after the Egyptian bombardment The Egyptian force, the largest among the Arab armies, invaded from the south. The Egyptian invasion was preceded by the entry of smaller forces of Muslim Brotherhood volunteers in April and Egyptian Army volunteers on 6 May, before the end of the Mandate. With the end of the Mandate, the Egyptian task force, composed of Egyptian troops and Muslim Brotherhood volunteers, entered the Negev. The main Egyptian force advanced north in the direction of Tel Aviv while a mixed force of Egyptian troops and Muslim Brotherhood volunteers broke off from the main force and advanced east, occupying Beersheba on 19 May before advancing to the Hebron Hills. It participated in combat alongside the Arab Legion and local irregulars at kibbutz Ramat Rachel. The presence of Israeli kibbutzim along the path of main force's thrust north was seen as a threat due to their potential to cut off forward units and harass supply convoys. To secure their flanks, the Egyptians attacked and laid siege to numerous kibbutzim, expending great resources in attempting to capture them. The defenders of these settlements held out fiercely for days against vastly superior forces, and managed to buy valuable time for the Israelis to reposition their forces and deploy the heavy weaponry now entering the country. The Egyptians took heavy losses, while the losses sustained by the defenders were comparatively light. During the last week of May, Israeli units of the Negev and Givati Brigades harassed the Egyptians. In addition, the embryonic Israeli Air Force periodically bombed the Gaza City area, where the Egyptian force's headquarters was located, using converted civilian aircraft. On 24 May, the Egyptians reached Majdal and made it their headquarters, briefly stopping and setting up a defensive perimeter. The Egyptians achieved a crucial success when a battalion advanced east from Majdal and managed to link up with the Egyptian force in the Hebron Hills. The Egyptians dug themselves in, cutting off numerous Israeli settlements as well as the Negev Brigade. However, this also resulted in Egyptian forces becoming more overstretched. On 2 June, an Egyptian battalion attacked Negba and was beaten back by the kibbutz's 140 defenders. The Israelis lost 8 killed and 11 wounded while inflicting an estimated 100 casualties on the Egyptians. From 29 May to 3 June, Israeli forces stopped the Egyptian drive north in Operation Pleshet. It began with attacks by Israel's fledgling air force. Isrseli aircraft attacked Egyptian positions at Isdud. The Israeli planes dropped 70 kilogram bombs and strafed enemy positions, although their machine guns quickly jammed. One plane was shot down and another crashed. The attacks caused the Egyptians to scatter, and they had lost the initiative by the time they had regrouped. Following the air attacks, the Givati Brigade launched a counterattack against Egyptian forces in Isdud supported by a battery of 65mm Napoleonchik cannons and two 120mm mortars. The counterattack was repulsed, although Israeli troops managed to briefly capture houses on the village's outskirts before being pushed back. Despite having held their ground, the Egyptian command was alarmed by the counterattack. They feared that their forces might be cut off. This fear was exacerbated when Givati Brigade troops ambushed an Egyptian supply column just south of Isdud. The Egyptian offensive was halted as Egypt changed its strategy from offensive to defensive, and the initiative shifted to Israel. The Israelis lost 45 killed or missing, 50 wounded, and 5 captured. Egyptian losses were variously reported as 7-15 killed and 18-30 wounded, although these may only be partial figures. On 6 June, in the Battle of Nitzanim, Egyptian forces attacked the kibbutz of Nitzanim, located between Majdal and Isdud, and the Israeli defenders surrendered after resisting for five days. Shortly before the first truce was to come into effect, an Israeli counterattack to retake the kibbutz failed and the Israelis retreated to nearby Hill 69, which was subsequently attacked and conquered by the Egyptians causing the Israelis to retreat further. The Egyptians then captured a major crossroads and attempted to continue towards Beit Daras and Be'er Tuvia but ran into fierce resistance and withdrew. However, Israeli forces managed to occupy a number of hilltop positions and villages along the front line, although they failed to conquer the Tegart fort at Iraq Suwaydan. By the time the first truce came into effect, the Egyptians were in scattered positions across the Negev to the Hebron area and incapable of mounting a serious offensive. Jerusalem and Latrun The heaviest fighting occurred in Jerusalem and on the Jerusalem – Tel Aviv road, between Jordan's Arab Legion and Israeli forces. With the termination of the Mandate, the Arab Legion entered eastern Palestine. Its units swiftly reached Jericho, Nablus, Ramallah, and Latrun, facing no resistance. The original Jordanian plan had been to avoid Jerusalem, as Jordan had promised the British a peaceful takeover of Arab areas in eastern Palestine and entering Jerusalem would both go against the UN plan for it to be an international zone and result in combat. However, after British control over Jerusalem ended, the Haganah and Irgun rapidly seized control in parts of the city, taking over British outposts in the Old City in Operation Shfifon a day before the Israeli declaration of independence followed by the rapid seizure of numerous other areas of the city in Operation Pitchfork. Arab refugees fled Jerusalem in large numbers, and the city's Arab notables sent appeals to King Abdullah and the Arab Legion's commander John Bagot Glubb asking for help. In addition, King Abdullah was probably also motivated to intervene over the city's political and religious signifiance, as well as the fact that he would be blamed for the fall of East Jerusalem by the Arab world, Israeli forces could potentially advance to Jericho from Jerusalem and cut off his forces, the graves of his father and brother Faisal were located there, and annexing an area as important as that would make his kingdom more significant. The easy occupation of eastern Palestine also likely gave him an appetite for further conquest as he talked of conquering West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for several days. It was finally decided to assault Jerusalem. King Abdullah ordered Glubb to enter Jerusalem on 17 May. On 19 May, Arab Legion forces advanced to Jerusalem from Ramallah and entered the city. Irgun fighters resisted their advance at Sheikh Jarrah and the Police School and were defeated, losing 6 dead and 15 wounded. The Arab Legion advanced to the Damascus Gate. However, their forces along the Ramallah-Jerusalem road were still enfiladed by Israeli positions. The Legion's main attack at Mandelbaum Gate was beaten back with three armored cars destroyed, and its assaults on Mount Scopus, Sanhedria, and Beit Yisrael were also repulsed. On 20 May, a Legion armored push against Haganah positions at the Notre Dame monastery, located at the northern wall of the Old City, was repelled with the loss of several armored cars. At the southern edge of Jerusalem, kibbutz Ramat Rachel was attacked on 19 May by a mixed force composed of Arab Legion units, local Arab irregulars, and the force of Egyptian soldiers and Muslim Brotherhood volunteers that had advanced from the Negev after splitting off from the main Egyptian force. After three days of bombardment which almost leveled the kibbutz, an infantry assault on 22 May captured it and the defenders retreated. Haganah forces returned and the kibbutz repeatedly changed hands before the final battle began on 24 May, when Haganah and Irgun forces fiercely held out for two days before counterattacking, driving the Arab forces out and conquering the nearby Mar Elias Monastery. The Arab force lost over 100 killed in the fighting while the Israelis lost 26 killed and 84 wounded. The Israeli victory at Ramat Rachel secured the southern entrance to the city. The Arab Legion also occupied the Zion Gate on 19 May following the Haganah retreat from the area, cutting off the Jewish Quarter again, and the assault on the quarter resumed, this time by the Legion together with Arab irregulars, about half of whom were from the Arab Liberation Army. The attack was supported by artillery, mortars, and armored cars, and Legion soldiers methodically blew up every building they took. The defenders were outnumbered and outgunned. The Harel Brigade launched poorly planned and undermanned attacks to try to break into the Jewish Quarter which were beaten back. Jewish morale plummeted after the Hurva Synagogue was captured and blown up. On 28 May, the Jewish Quarter surrendered. Of the defenders, 39 had been killed and 134 wounded. The inhabitants were expelled, with 1,200 being escorted to Israeli-held West Jerusalem alongside some seriously wounded defenders, while 290 males, two-thirds of whom were civilians, were taken prisoner. The Jews had to be escorted out by the Arab Legion to protect them against Palestinian Arab mobs that intended to massacre them. Legion soldiers killed at least two Arab civilians while guarding the Jews. The Jewish Quarter was subsequently pillaged and razed by an Arab mob. According to the official Jordanian military account, the Arab Legion lost 14 killed and 25 wounded in fighting for the Old City. Simultaneously, the Arab Legion moved to cut off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road. Glubb felt that in order to hold onto East Jerusalem he had to prevent the Israelis, who had many more troops, from reinforcing their units in Jerusalem. The strategic hilltop of Latrun, which had a Tegart fort, was deemed the ideal location. Arab Legion forces firmly occupied Latrun on 18 May and held the area together with local Arab irregulars. From the high ground they were able to shell Israeli traffic along the road to Tel Aviv. As a result, Israeli-held West Jerusalem was effectively placed under siege. Supplies to Israeli fighters and civilians in Jerusalem were cut off. They tried again with Operation Bin-Nun Bet on 30-31 May. This attack met more success, with the Israelis managing to capture the monastery and half the village on the hill and reaching the perimeter of the fort, with some soldiers even breaching into the fort before being killed inside, but in the end the Israelis retreated. The attack cost the Israelis 44 killed while the Arab Legion lost between 12 and 20 killed, with the fort's commander among the dead. Israeli forces made one more attempt to capture Latrun before the first truce with Operation Yoram, an attack by two battalions on the night of 8-9 June. The attack made some progress and managed to cause a partial retreat of the Arab Legion but due to confusion, approaching daylight, and reports of heavy casualties, the attackers were ordered to retreat. One of the Israeli battalions lost 16 killed and 79 wounded while the other had a handful of casualties. The Arab Legion suffered several dozen casualties. Northern Samaria area An Iraqi brigade group consisting of two infantry battalions, one armored car battalion, and one artillery battalion was sent to Mafraq in northern Transjordan in late April to prepare for action in Palestine, and crossed the Jordan River on 15 May. The Iraqis attacked kibbutz Gesher beginning with an artillery barrage. On 16 May, the Iraqis captured nearby Camel Hill and launched assaults on the kibbutz and a nearby police fort. The defenders, who received air support from Piper Cubs, repulsed the attacks, inflicting heavy losses. On the following day, the Iraqis renewed their assaults and were again repulsed, with numerous Iraqi armored cars that managed to break into the fort's courtyard put out of action by molotov cocktails. The Iraqis then laid siege to the kibbutz for five days. Israeli counterattacks against the Iraqis on Camel Hill were unsuccessful. After another Iraqi assault failed, the Iraqis attempted to take a nearby hill to the west dominated by Belvoir Castle but were beaten back by Israeli troops of the Golani Brigade dug in at the top who received artillery support from two Napoleonchik 65mm cannons that had been decisively used against the Syrians several miles to the north days before. The IDF lost 34 killed and over 100 wounded in the fighting for Jenin and claimed to have killed some 200 Iraqi soldiers and Arab irregulars. Historian Pesach Malovany wrote that the Israeli figure for Arab casualties was "somewhat exaggerated" and cited Iraqi losses as 27 killed, while a count of Iraqi graves in a local cemetery suggests a figure of 44 Iraqi soldiers killed. On 4 June, the IDF launched an attack against Qaqun, northwest of Tulkarm. Elements of the Alexandroni Brigade conquered the village, engaging local militiamen and Iraqi forces. According Benny Morris, only a few local militiamen and several dozen Iraqi soldiers were present and they were rapidly overwhelmed by the Israeli assault. He characterized it as a minor Israeli success. According to the Alexandroni Brigade's official history, a nearby Iraqi headquarters was taken in addition to the village, the Israeli soldiers subsequently held out against Iraqi counterattacks with both sides receiving air support, and an entire Iraqi battalion was ultimately wiped out. Pesarch Malovany wrote that after the village's conquest an Iraqi counterattack was repulsed on 5 June. The Alexandroni Brigade lost 16 soldiers in the fighting for Qaqun. The Israeli forces facing the Syrian invasion initially consisted of the Golani Brigade's 12th Battalion and militia from local kibbutzim, with a company of the Yiftach Brigade and militia platoons from settlements further behind the line arriving as reinforcements in the following days. In the early hours of 15 May, the Syrian invasion began. The 2nd Brigade advanced to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee and attacked kibbutz Ein Gev as a diversion for the main assault conducted by the 1st Brigade. The attack on Ein Gev began with an airstrike by a lone Syrian aircraft which dropped bombs aimed at the kibbutz which missed. Syrian infantry raked the kibbutz with machine gun fire but did not mount a direct ground assault. The 1st Brigade invaded along the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, shelling kibbutzim to their west, and advanced to the lower Jordan Valley. An assault on Sha'ar HaGolan and two assaults on Samakh were repelled. By 19 May, Israeli morale had plummeted. The Haganah sent reinforcements and chief of operations Yigael Yadin ordered that the defenders should fight for every position with no voluntary abandonment. Four Napoleonchik 65mm mountain guns were sent to provide artillery support. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion had initially wanted to send them to the Jerusalem front but after an argument with Yadin backed down and agreed to have them sent to the north. On 20 May, the Syrians assaulted Degania Alef and Degania Bet. The two kibbutzim were defended by local militiamen reinforced by elements of the Carmeli Brigade. The defenders were supported by three 20mm guns at Beit Yerah, four 81mm mortars of which were positioned at Kvutzat Kinneret and one at Degania Alef, and a Davidka mortar at Degania Alef. Each kibbutz also had a PIAT with fifteen rounds. The defenders were ordered to fight to the death and not retreat. The defeat was considered to be decisive. Based on these battles, British observers concluded that the Arabs would not win the war. The Syrian Defense Minister and Chief of Staff as well as the commanders of the 1st and 2nd Brigades resigned within days. One author claims that the main reason for the Syrian defeat was the Syrian soldiers' low regard for the Israelis who they believed would not stand and fight. Subsequently, the Syrians reverted to a defensive posture, conducting only a few minor attacks on small, exposed Israeli settlements. On 15 May, the 2nd Yarmuk Battalion crossed the border and pushed to the abandoned village of Al-Malkiyya and the surrounding area. The area was defended by the Yiftach Brigade's 1st Battalion and fighting commenced in and around the village. The ALA fighters received artillery support and were reinforced by a company of Jordanian Bedouin volunteers, and the Haganah ultimately ended up retreating by nightfall. The Israelis had taken around 150 casualties. Although victorious, the ALA had also taken serious casualties and decided to dig in at Al-Malkiyya and the nearby village of Qadas rather than advance further. On the night of 15-16 May, a bridge over the Litani River six miles into Lebanon was destroyed in an Israeli commando raid, which reduced Lebanon's ability to supply the ALA forces. On the night of 28-29 May, the Yiftach Brigade counterattacked and retook Al-Malkiyya and the cost of 2 killed and 3 wounded. On 5-6 June, the 3rd Battalion of the Lebanese Army, together with ALA fighters and a Syrian battalion, recaptured Al-Malkiyya and Qadas in what became the only intervention of the Lebanese Army during the war, handing the towns over to the ALA and withdrawing on 8 July. Haifa area On the night 22-23 May, the 33rd Battalion of the Haganah's Alexandroni Brigade attacked the Palestinian Arab village of Tantura, which was part of an Arab enclave south of Haifa. The attack began with heavy machine gun fire followed by an infantry assault from all landward sides as an Israeli naval vessel blocked off the village from the sea. The villagers put up fierce resistance but Tantura was conquered on 23 May. Subsequently, Israeli troops killed a number of villagers in what became known as the Tantura massacre, although the number of those killed is disputed. Air operations shot down over Tel Aviv on 15 May 1948 The Haganah's embryonic air corps, Sherut Avir ("Air Service"), was established in November 1947 and became the Israeli Air Force following the establishment of the Israel Defense Forces. At the beginning of the war, Israel had no combat aircraft, only a hodge-podge of civilian aircraft which were used as makeshift bombers by having aircrew carry 25 and 50 pound bombs and incendiaries in their lap and manually drop them. Of the invading Arab nations, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq had air forces with fighter and bomber aircraft. However, many of their aircraft were unserviceable and they suffered from low competence among pilots as well as poor maintenance, ground control, and intelligence. Losses and diminishing ammunition stocks over the course of the war further reduced their effectiveness. Meanwhile, Israel gradually acquired combat aircraft, first fielding them in late May, and its air force only grew in strength. On 22 May, Egyptian Spitfires attacked RAF Ramat David, southeast of Haifa, while the base was still held by the Royal Air Force as it covered the withdrawal of British forces from Palestine. The Egyptians mistakenly believed that the Israelis had already taken over the base. The attack destroyed and damaged numerous aircraft, destroyed a hangar, and killed four RAF personnel. Five attacking Egyptian Spitfires were shot down by the RAF. The REAF took additional losses as the Israelis fielded more effective anti-aircraft defenses. By the end of May, the Egyptians had lost almost the entire Spitfire squadron based at El Arish, including many of their best pilots. On 3 June, Israel scored its first victory in aerial combat when Israeli pilot Modi Alon shot down a pair of Egyptian DC-3s that had just bombed Tel Aviv. Although Tel Aviv would see additional raids by fighter aircraft, there would be no more raids by bombers for the rest of the war. From then on, the Israeli Air Force began engaging the Arab air forces in air-to-air combat. The first dogfight took place on 8 June, when an Israeli fighter plane flown by Gideon Lichtman shot down an Egyptian Spitfire. By the fall of 1948, the IAF had achieved air superiority and had superior firepower and more knowledgeable personnel, many of whom had seen action in World War II. Many of the pilots who fought for the Israeli Air Force were foreign volunteers or mercenaries, including many World War II veterans. Following Israeli air attacks on Egyptian and Iraqi columns, the Egyptians repeatedly bombed Ekron Airfield, where IAF fighters were based. During a 30 May raid, bombs aimed for Ekron hit central Rehovot, killing 7 civilians and wounding 30. In response to this, and probably to the Jordanian victories in the Battles of Latrun, Israel began bombing targets in Arab cities. On the night of 31 May/1 June, the first Israeli raid on an Arab capital took place when three Israeli aircraft attacked Amman, dropping several dozen 55 and 110-pound bombs, hitting the King's Palace and an adjacent British airfield. Some 12 people were killed and 30 wounded. During the attack, an RAF hangar was damaged, as were some British aircraft. The British threatened that in the event of another such attack, they would shoot down the attacking aircraft and bomb Israeli airfields, and as a result, Israeli aircraft did not attack Amman again for the rest of the war. On 11 June, hours before the first truce came into effect, the Israeli Air Force carried out a raid on Damascus with a lone C-47 Skytrain dropping explosive and incendiary bombs over the city, killing 22 people. Sea battles circa 1944 which became the INS Eilat At the outset of the war, the Israeli Navy consisted of three former Aliyah Bet ships that had been seized by the British and impounded in Haifa harbour, where they were tied up at the breakwater. Work on establishing a navy had begun shortly before Israeli independence, and the three ships were selected due to them having a military background – one, the INS Eilat, was the ex-US Coast Guard gunboat USCGC Northland, and the other two, the INS Haganah and INS Wedgwood, had been Royal Canadian Navy corvettes. Later, the former US Navy submarine chaser USS PC-1265 was purchased from the United States and became the INS Noga. It arrived in Israel in September 1948. The ships were put into minimum running condition by contractors dressed as stevedores and port personnel, who were able to work in the engine rooms and below deck. The work had to be clandestine to avoid arousing British suspicion. On 21 May 1948, the three ships set sail for Tel Aviv, and were made to look like ships that had been purchased by foreign owners for commercial use. In Tel Aviv, the ships were fitted with small field guns dating to the late 19th century and anti-aircraft guns. Israeli use 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. End of the first phase The first four weeks of the war were a decisive Israeli success. The Israelis managed to hold off the Arab forces, managing to keep most of their territory and expand their holdings. According to Benny Morris, in retrospect this had been the only period of the war in which the Arabs could have won or at least made major territorial gains Israeli expense. The Syrians were stopped just west of the original border between Palestine and Syria, the Jordanians and Iraqis occupied territory that had been allotted to the Palestinian Arabs, with the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem being the only Israeli-held territory that they managed to capture, and the Egyptians were stopped roughly at the northern limit of the southern part of Palestine that had been intended to go to the Arabs, although they did manage to cut off some Israeli troops and settlements. The Israelis expanded their territorial holdings in some areas, such as the Western Galilee and Jerusalem area. The IDF was also larger and better equipped than at the beginning of the war. The Israelis had also moved onto the offensive, and while initial counterattacks at Latrun, Isdud, and Jenin failed, the strategic initiative passed into their hands. Upon the implementation of the truce, the IDF had control over nine Arab cities and towns or mixed cities and towns: New Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Safed, Tiberias, Baysan (Beit She'an), Samakh and Yibna (Yavne). Another city, Jenin, was not occupied but its residents fled. The combined Arab forces captured 14 Jewish settlement points, but only one of them, Mishmar HaYarden, was in the territory of the proposed Jewish State according to Resolution 181. In the period between the invasion and the first truce the Syrian army had 315 of its men killed and 400–500 injured; the Iraqi expeditionary force had 200 of its men killed and 500 injured; the Jordanian Arab Legion had 300 of its men killed and 400–500 injured (including irregulars and Palestinian volunteers fighting under the Jordanians); the Egyptian army had 600 of its men killed and 1,400 injured (including irregulars from the Muslim Brotherhood); the ALA, which returned to fight in early June, had 100 of its men killed or injured. 800 Jews were taken prisoner by the Arabs and 1,300 Arabs were taken prisoner by the Jews, mostly Palestinians. Both the Israelis and the Arabs used this time to improve their positions, a direct violation of the terms of the ceasefire. Reinforcements and reorganization At the time of the truce, the British view was that "the Jews are too weak in armament to achieve spectacular success". The Israeli army increased its manpower from approximately 30,000–35,000 men to almost 65,000 during the truce due to mobilization and the constant immigration into Israel. Most existing IDF brigades were expanded with two new brigades entering service. The import of massive quantities of weapons and munitions from Czechoslovakia continued, with about 25,000 rifles, 5,000 machine guns, and fifty million bullets from Czechoslovakia having reached Israel by the end of the truce. In addition, Israel received heavy weaponry that had been purchased in the United States and Western Europe during both the initial four weeks of fighting and the truce, with numerous artillery pieces and armored vehicles, mostly American-built half-tracks, some of which had mounted guns and mortars, arriving by the end of June, as well as a continued trickle of fighter aircraft from Czechoslovakia. After the truce ended, the IDF was able to resume fighting in a far stronger position. According to Benny Morris, "the army that confronted the Arab states on 8–9 July was radically different from, and far stronger than, that which they had met on 15 May." UN mediator Bernadotte , assassinated in September 1948 by the militant group Lehi The ceasefire was overseen by UN mediator Folke Bernadotte and a team of UN Observers made up of army officers from Belgium, United States, Sweden and France. Bernadotte was voted in by the General Assembly to "assure the safety of the holy places, to safeguard the well-being of the population, and to promote 'a peaceful adjustment of the future situation of Palestine. Folke Bernadotte reported: During the period of the truce, three violations occurred ... of such a serious nature: • the attempt by ...the Irgun Zvai Leumi to bring war materials and immigrants, including men of military age, into Palestine aboard the ship Altalena on 21 June... • Another truce violation occurred through the refusal of Egyptian forces to permit the passage of relief convoys to Jewish settlements in the Negeb... • The third violation of the truce arose as a result of the failure of the Transjordan and Iraqi forces to permit the flow of water to Jerusalem. After the truce was in place, Bernadotte began to address the issue of achieving a political settlement. The main obstacles in his opinion were "the Arab world's continued rejection of the existence of a Jewish state, whatever its borders; Israel's new 'philosophy', based on its increasing military strength, of ignoring the partition boundaries and conquering what additional territory it could; and the emerging Palestinian Arab refugee problem". During the fighting, the Israelis were able to open a lifeline to a number of besieged kibbutzim. The IDF continued its offensive in the following days, capturing a hill north of Negba and raiding Egyptian positions. On 16-18 July, the Israelis carried out Operation Death to the Invader to link the Israeli settlements in the Negev with core Israeli territory. The offensive succeeded in capturing numerous villages, although attacks on two villages were repulsed. However, the objective of achieving a link between the Israeli settlement concentration in the Negev and the rest of Israeli-held territory was not achieved. The IDF also managed to temporarily disrupt Egyptian traffic along the Majdal-Bayt Jibrin road with the capture of Karatiyya although the Egyptians swiftly built a bypass road. Meanwhile, the Egyptians launched a series of attacks of their own, which failed. On 14 July, an Egyptian attack on Gal On was repulsed. The Egyptians then assaulted the lightly defended village of Be'erot Yitzhak. The Egyptians managed to penetrate the village perimeter, but the defenders concentrated in an inner position in the village and fought off the Egyptian advance until IDF reinforcements arrived and drove out the attackers. The Egyptians suffered an estimated 200 casualties, while the Israelis had 17 dead and 15 wounded. The Egyptians did not attack any more Israeli villages following this battle. On 18 July, an Egyptian counterattack against Karatiyya was repulsed after an Egyptian tank was knocked out by an Israeli PIAT, causing the remaining tanks and infantry to retreat. Lydda and Ramle The IDF launched a pincer movement to surround the cities of Lydda and Ramle on 10 July. Two brigades, one of which was augmented by two additional battalions, took numerous villages in their path along with Lydda Airport. On the following day, the IDF advanced on Lydda from the north via Majdal al-Sadiq and al-Muzayri'a, and from the east via Khulda, al-Qubab, Jimzu and Daniyal. Israeli forces also used bombers for the first time in the conflict to bombard the city. Resistance was initially light, although the IDF failed to capture Dayr Tarif in a fierce battle with the Arab Legion, while the Legion in turn launched an attack against IDF troops in Jimzu which was repulsed. The IDF captured Lydda on 11 July after an initial attack on the city was repulsed, while Ramla was occupied without a fight the following day after its notables surrendered. On 12 July, after the fighting had initially settled down, an Arab Legion armored car unit entered Lydda and a firefight with IDF troops ensued, during which some locals joined the fighting and shot at IDF troops. This was interpreted by the Israeli government as "rebellion" and Ben-Gurion authorized the expulsion of the civilian populations of Lydda and Ramla. To the northeast, the IDF's Alexandroni Brigade took two Iraqi-held villages north of Qula. The Arab Legion's 1st Brigade counterattacked against Qula and days of fighting ensued, with the village repeatedly changing hands until the Alexandroni Brigade secured the village on 18 July right before the second truce came into effect. After the final assault on the village, the bodies of 16 Alexandroni Brigade prisoners previously captured there were found, most of them mutilated. The IDF, Irgun, and Lehi initially captured a number of locations adjacent to Jerusalem prior to launching the main assault. On 16-17 July, the IDF, Irgun, and Lehi launched the attack to conquer the Old City. The attack failed, although a position adjacent to the New Gate was temporarily captured. In the Easern Galilee, the IDF took Kafr Sabt, west of the Sea of Galilee, on 9-10 July. In response, the ALA launched a series of attacks to take Ilaniya. The ALA threw most of its energies into the effort, deploying infantry, armored cars, and an artillery battery, which enabled the easy conquests of Operation Dekel. The ALA's repeated attacks on Ilaniya during 11-16 July were repulsed with heavy losses. On 18 July, just before the second truce came into effect, the IDF captured Lubya. In the Western Galilee, the IDF failed to take the villages of Tarshiha and Mi'ilya. Air operations As in the first round of fighting, air operations during the Ten Days had minimal military impact, although they affected morale. The most significant air attack during this period was the Israeli bombing of Cairo. Three B-17 bombers that had been acquired by the Haganah in the United States and flown to Czechoslovakia for outfitting and arming flew to Israel on 15 July with orders to bomb Egyptian targets en route. One B-17 bombed Cairo, aiming for Abdeen Palace. The bombs missed their target but caused damage nearby, including to a railway line, and killed 30 people. The two other B-17s bombed Rafah. The Egyptians responded with raids on Tel Aviv by Dakota aircraft accompanied by a Spitfire fighter escort, killing at least 15 people. One Egyptian Dakota was lost. Subsequently, the Israeli Air Force bombed El Arish and Syrian positions near Mishmar HaYarden with the B-17s. An Israeli Dakota also bombed Damascus, which was followed up by another raid on Damascus by an Israeli B-17 which aimed at Mezzeh Air Base but hit civilian areas. Dozens of people were killed in these attacks. In addition, Israeli Air Force fighter aircraft flew ground support missions and on occasion intercepted Egyptian aircraft. Syrian aircraft also launched attacks in the Mishmar HaYarden area. Arab air forces were almost completely ineffective during this period. On 16 September, Count Folke Bernadotte proposed a new partition for Palestine in which the Negev would be divided between Jordan and Egypt, and Jordan would annexe Lydda and Ramla. There would be a Jewish state in the whole of Galilee, with the frontier running from Faluja northeast towards Ramla and Lydda. Jerusalem would be internationalised, with municipal autonomy for the city's Jewish and Arab inhabitants, the Port of Haifa would be a free port, and Lydda Airport would be a free airport. All Palestinian refugees would be granted the right of return, and those who chose not to return would be compensated for lost property. The UN would control and regulate Jewish immigration. The plan was once again rejected by both sides. On the next day, 17 September, Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem by the militant Zionist group Lehi. A four-man team ambushed Bernadotte's motorcade in Jerusalem, killing him and a French UN observer sitting next to him. Lehi saw Bernadotte as a British and Arab puppet, and thus a serious threat to the emerging State of Israel, and feared that the provisional Israeli government would accept the plan, which it considered disastrous. Unbeknownst to Lehi, the government had already decided to reject it and resume combat in a month. Bernadotte's deputy, American Ralph Bunche, replaced him. On 22 September 1948, the Provisional State Council of Israel passed the Area of Jurisdiction and Powers Ordinance, 5708–1948, applying Israeli jurisdiction to all areas of Palestine taken since the war began. It also declared that from then on, any part of Palestine defined by the Defense Minister as being held by the IDF would be added to Israeli jurisdiction. Little Triangle pocket The Arab villagers of the area known as the "Little Triangle" south of Haifa repeatedly fired at Israeli traffic along the main road from Tel Aviv to Haifa and were supplied by the Iraqis from northern Samaria. Third phase: 15 October 1948 – 10 March 1949 Israel launched a series of military operations to drive out the Arab armies and secure the northern and southern borders of Israel. Northern front – Galilee , October 1948 On 22 October, the third truce went into effect. Irregular Arab forces refused to recognise the truce, and continued to harass Israeli forces and settlements in the north. On the same day that the truce came into effect, the Arab Liberation Army violated the truce by attacking Manara, capturing the strongpoint of Sheikh Abed, repulsing counterattacks by local Israeli units, and ambushing Israeli forces attempting to relieve Manara. The IDF's Carmeli Brigade lost 33 dead and 40 wounded. Manara and Misgav Am were totally cut off, and Israel's protests at the UN failed to change the situation. On 24 October, the IDF launched Operation Hiram and captured the entire upper Galilee area, driving the ALA back to Lebanon, and ambushing and destroying an entire Syrian battalion. At the end of the month, the IDF had captured the whole of Galilee, driven all ALA forces out of Israel, and had advanced into Lebanon to the Litani River, occupying thirteen Lebanese villages. In the Lebanese village of Hula, two Israeli officers killed between 35 and 58 prisoners as retaliation for the Haifa Oil Refinery massacre. Both officers were later put on trial for their actions. Negev , October 1948 during Operation Yoav , near Hebron, after it was captured. October 1948. Israel launched a series of military operations to drive out the Arab armies and secure the borders of Israel. However, invading the West Bank might have brought into the borders of the expanding State of Israel a massive Arab population it could not absorb. The Negev desert was an empty space for expansion, so the main war effort shifted to Negev from early October. Israel decided to destroy or at least drive out the Egyptian expeditionary force since the Egyptian front lines were too vulnerable as permanent borders. The Egyptian positions were badly weakened by the lack of a defence in depth, which meant that once the IDF had broken through the Egyptian lines, there was little to stop them. On 28 December, the Alexandroni Brigade failed to take the Falluja Pocket, but managed to seize Iraq el-Manshiyeh and temporarily hold it. The Egyptians counterattacked, but were mistaken for a friendly force and allowed to advance, trapping a large number of men. The Israelis lost 87 soldiers. On 5 March, Operation Uvda was launched following nearly a month of reconnaissance, with the goal of securing the Southern Negev from Jordan. The IDF entered and secured the territory, but did not meet significant resistance along the way, as the area was already designated to be part of the Jewish state in the UN Partition Plan, and the operation meant to establish Israeli sovereignty over the territory rather than actually conquer it. The Golani, Negev, and Alexandroni brigades participated in the operation, together with some smaller units and with naval support. On 10 March, Israeli forces secured the Southern Negev, reaching the southern tip of Palestine: Umm Rashrash on the Red Sea (where Eilat was built later) and taking it without a battle. Israeli soldiers raised a hand-made Israeli flag ("The Ink Flag") at 16:00 on 10 March, claiming Umm Rashrash for Israel. The raising of the Ink Flag is considered to be the end of the war. Anglo-Israeli air clashes pilot killed during a clash with the Israeli Air Force As the fighting progressed and Israel mounted an incursion into the Sinai, the Royal Air Force began conducting almost daily reconnaissance missions over Israel and the Sinai. RAF reconnaissance aircraft took off from Egyptian airbases and sometimes flew alongside Royal Egyptian Air Force planes. High-flying British aircraft frequently flew over Haifa and Ramat David Airbase, and became known to the Israelis as the "shuftykeit". Just before noon on 7 January 1949, four Spitfire FR18s from No. 208 Squadron RAF on a reconnaissance mission in the Deir al-Balah area flew over an Israeli convoy that had been attacked by five Egyptian Spitfires fifteen minutes earlier. The pilots had spotted smoking vehicles and were drawn to the scene out of curiosity. Two planes dived to below 500 feet altitude to take pictures of the convoy, while the remaining two covered them from 1,500 feet. Israeli soldiers on the ground, alerted by the sound of the approaching Spitfires and fearing another Egyptian air attack, opened fire with machine guns. One Spitfire was shot down by a tank-mounted machine gun, while the other was lightly damaged and rapidly pulled up. The remaining three Spitfires were then attacked by patrolling IAF Spitfires flown by Chalmers Goodlin and John McElroy, volunteers from the United States and Canada respectively. All three Spitfires were shot down, and one pilot was killed. In response, the RAF readied all Tempests and Spitfires to attack any IAF aircraft they encountered and bomb IAF airfields. British troops in the Middle East were placed on high alert with all leave cancelled, and British citizens were advised to leave Israel. The Royal Navy was placed on high alert. At Hatzor Airbase, the general consensus among the pilots, most of whom had flown with or alongside the RAF during World War II, was that the RAF would not allow the loss of five aircraft and two pilots to go without retaliation, and would probably attack the base at dawn the next day. That night, in anticipation of an impending British attack, some pilots decided not to offer any resistance and left the base, while others prepared their Spitfires and were strapped into the cockpits at dawn, preparing to repel a retaliatory airstrike. However, despite pressure from the squadrons involved in the incidents, British commanders refused to authorise any retaliatory strikes. The day following the incident, British pilots were issued a directive to regard any Israeli aircraft infiltrating Egyptian or Jordanian airspace as hostile and to shoot them down, but were also ordered to avoid activity close to Israel's borders. Later in January 1949, the British managed to prevent the delivery of aviation spirit and other essential fuels to Israel in retaliation for the incident. The British Foreign Office presented the Israeli government with a demand for compensation over the loss of personnel and equipment. UN Resolution 194 In December 1948, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194. It called to establish a UN Conciliation Commission to facilitate peace between Israel and Arab states. However, many of the resolution's articles were not fulfilled, since these were opposed by Israel, rejected by the Arab states, or were overshadowed by war as the 1948 conflict continued. ==Weapons==

Both sides utilized weapons that had been used in World War II by the British and French forces. Egypt's arsenal included leftover British equipment, while the Syrian arsenal included leftover French weaponry. The Israeli Defense Forces utilized an array of British, American, French and Czechoslovak military equipment. In addition to the aforementioned, the IDF also used several Davidka mortars, which were a domestically produced weapon by Israel. According to Amitzur Ilan, "Israel's ability to cope better with the embargo situation was, by far, her greatest strategic asset." ==Aftermath==

1949 Armistice Agreements 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 of former Mandatory Palestine or some , 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. Moreover, the results of the war were already satisfactory and Israeli leaders had to build a state. 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. Demographic outcomes Arabs 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, Of these, upwards of 300,000 arrived from Asian and North African states. Among them, the largest group, over 100,000, was from Iraq. The remaining came mostly from Europe, including 136,000 from the 250,000 displaced Jews of World War II living in refugee camps and urban centers in Germany, Austria, and Italy, and more than 270,000 coming from Eastern Europe, mainly Romania and Poland, over 100,000 each. On the establishment of the state, a top priority was given to a policy for the "ingathering of exiles", and the Mossad LeAliyah Bet gave key assistance to the Jewish Agency to organise immigrants from Europe and the Middle East, and arrange for their transport to Israel. For Ben-Gurion, a fundamental defect of the State was that "it lacked Jews". 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. ==Historiography==

Since the war, different historiographical traditions have interpreted the events of 1948 differently; in the words of the New Historian Avi Shlaim, "each side subscribes to a different version of events." In the Israeli narrative, the war is Israel's War of Independence. and the Israelis are seen as conquerors and the Palestinians as victims. Linguistic barriers represent another hurdle, as most research is published exclusively in the author's native language and is not translated. According to Avraham Sela and Neil Caplan:A major reason for this grip of the past over the present is the unfulfilled quest of both Israelis and Palestinians for legitimacy, in one or more of the following three senses: (a) each party's sense of its own legitimacy as a national community entitled to its own sovereign state; (b) each party's willingness to grant legitimacy to at least part of the competing national narrative of the other; and (c) the international community's extension of legitimacy to the competing rights and claims of Israelis and Palestinians.'' According to Shlaim, the new historians disagreed with the Zionist narrative on six main points: British policy with regard to the Yishuv at the end of the Palestine Mandate, the military balance in 1948, the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem, the nature of relations between Israelis and Jordanians during the war, Arab aims in the war, and the reasons peace remained elusive after the war. Aref al-Aref wrote a six volume work titled that was published in Arabic in the 1950s. Palestinian narratives have focused on countering the dominant Zionist narrative; the preeminent Palestinian historian of 1948 Walid Khalidi has dedicated much of his career to disproving the official Israeli narrative that the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight was voluntary. Western narratives In the United States The American journalist Joan Peters' 1984 book From Time Immemorial had a massive impact on how 1948 was understood in popular and political narratives in the United States. Ilan Pappé asserts the neo-Zionist narrative was pushed in the United States most passionately by Michael Walzer, and by Anita Shapira and Derek Penslar with their 2003 Israeli Historical Revisionism: From Left to Right. == In popular culture ==

• In 1948, the Egyptian film A Girl from Palestine tells the story of an Egyptian fighter pilot. • A 2015 PBS documentary, A Wing and a Prayer, depicts the Al Schwimmer–led airborne smuggling missions to arm Israel. ==See also==