The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line.
Operation Hiram was a military operation conducted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It was led by General Moshe Carmel, and aimed at capturing the Upper Galilee region from the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) forces led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji and a Syrian battalion. The operation, which lasted 60 hours, ended just before the ceasefire with the neighboring Arab countries went into effect.
During the 1948 Palestine 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.
The al-Dawayima massacre describes the killing of civilians by the Israeli army (IDF) that took place in the Palestinian Arab town of al-Dawayima on October 29, 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The incident occurred after the town was occupied by the IDF's 89th Commando Battalion during Operation Yoav, encountering little resistance.
On November 2, 1948, two squads of Israel Defense Forces soldiers captured an encampment of Bedouins at Khirbat al-Wa'ra al-Sawda' in the eastern Galilee. While some soldiers guarded the Arabs, others went to a nearby hilltop where the headless bodies of two Israeli soldiers were found. In retaliation, the Arabs' dwellings were destroyed and 15 or 16 adult males were shot, 14 of whom died.
The Safsaf massacre took place on 29 October 1948, following the capture of the Palestinian Arab village of Safsaf in the Galilee by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The village was defended by the Arab Liberation Army's Second Yarmuk Battalion.
The Kfar Etzion massacre refers to a massacre of Jews that took place after a two-day battle in which Jewish Kibbutz residents and Haganah militia defended Kfar Etzion from a combined force of the Arab Legion and local Arab men on May 13, 1948, the day before the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Of the 127 Haganah fighters and Jewish kibbutzniks who died during the defence of the settlement, Martin Gilbert states that fifteen were killed on surrendering.
Al-Khisas, also known as Khisas or Khissas, was a Palestinian Arab village in the Safad Subdistrict in Mandatory Palestine. It was located 31 kilometers (19 mi) northeast of Safed on a natural terrace about 100 meters (330 ft) wide that formed when Lake al-Hula receded. To the west of the village was a valley known as Wadi al-Hasibani through which ran the Hasbani River.
Maximos V Hakim was elected Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, and Alexandria and Jerusalem of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in 1967 and served until 2000. He guided the church through turbulent changes in the Middle East and rapid expansion in the Western hemisphere.
The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption of the Partition Plan for Palestine.
During the 1948 Palestine war in which the State of Israel was established, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs, or 85% of the total population of the territory Israel captured, were expelled or fled from their homes. The causes of this mass displacement have been a matter of dispute, though today most scholars consider that the majority of Palestinians were directly expelled or else fled due to fear.
Eilabun is an Arab Christian village located in the Beit Netofa Valley around 15 kilometres south-west of Safed in northern Galilee between Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee. It had a population of 5,799 in 2022, which is predominantly Christian (70.5%). In 1973, Eilabun was granted local council status by the Israeli government.
The Sons of Eilaboun is a 2007 documentary film by Palestinian artist and film maker Hisham Zreiq (Zrake), that tells the story of the Eilabun massacre, which was committed by the Israeli army during Operation Hiram in October 1948. Eilaboun is a village in the Northern Galilee between Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee. In the incident, fourteen men were killed and twelve of them were executed. The villagers were expelled to Lebanon and became refugees for few months, before being allowed to return in 1949.
In July 1948, during the 1948 Palestine war, the Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramle were captured by the Israeli Defense Forces and their residents were violently expelled. The expulsions occurred as part of the broader 1948 Palestinian expulsions and the Nakba. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed in multiple mass killings, including the Lydda massacre, and in what is sometimes known as the Lydda death march. The two Arab towns, lying outside the area designated for a Jewish state in the UN Partition Plan of 1947, and inside the area set aside for an Arab state in Palestine, were subsequently incorporated into the new State of Israel and repopulated with Jewish immigrants. After their conquest the towns were given Hebrew names of Lod and Ramla.
Ayn Ghazal was a Palestinian Arab village located 21 kilometers (13 mi) south of Haifa. Depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War as a result of an Israeli military assault during Operation Shoter, the village was then completely destroyed. Incorporated into the State of Israel, it is now mostly a forested area. The Israeli moshav of Ofer ("fawn") was established in 1950 on part of the former village's lands. Ein Ayala, a moshav established in 1949, lies just adjacent; its name being the Hebrew translation of Ayn Ghazal.
Daniyal was a Palestinian village in the Ramle Subdistrict that was located 5 km east of Ramla and southeast of Lydda. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War on July 10, 1948, by the Yiftach Brigade under the first phase of Operation Dani, as part of the broader 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and Nakba.
Khirbat al-Wa'ra al-Sawda' was a Palestinian Arab village in the Tiberias Subdistrict. In 1945, the village had a population of 1,870 Arabs. It was depopulated during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on April 18, 1948. It was located 7.5 km northeast of Tiberias. Some of the villagers fled to Syria while others migrated to the central Galilee.
In the 1948 Palestine war, more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of Mandatory Palestine's predominantly Arab population – were expelled or fled from their homes, at first by Zionist paramilitaries, and after the establishment of Israel, by its military. The expulsion and flight was a central component of the fracturing, dispossession, and displacement of Palestinian society, known as the Nakba. Dozens of massacres targeting Arabs were conducted by Israeli military forces and between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were destroyed. Village wells were poisoned in a biological warfare programme and properties were looted to prevent Palestinian refugees from returning. Other sites were subject to Hebraization of Palestinian place names.
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. 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.
The Nakba is the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. The term is used to describe the events of the 1948 Palestine war in Mandatory Palestine as well as the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel. As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
