The first war between Israel and the Arab states broke out immediately after the adoption of the UN partition plan on November 29, 1947, and ended formally on June 20, 1949, though fighting had already ceased in January 1949, some eight months after Israel’s independence had officially been proclaimed. In Israel this war is also known as the War of Liberation.
The war began as a result of the refusal of the Arabs of Palestine and the Arab states to accept the recommendation of the UN General Assembly to establish two states, one Jewish and the other Arab, in the territory of Mandated Palestine. The Arabs strove to prevent the implementation of the resolution and to achieve Arab control of the land by force.
The War of Independence can be divided into five stages. During the first two stages the war was fought against the Arabs of Palestine: the local Arabs were defeated and the State of Israel was proclaimed. In the following three stages, the fighting was against the five Arab armies – of Trans-Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq – that invaded the State of Israel on the day after the proclamation of the State.
The State established during the war set up a provisional government and provisional governmental and legal institutions. The state also called up fighting forces which were termed, from the day of the Proclamation of the State, “defense forces” and, as of May 26, 1948 – “the Israel Defense Forces”.
The war, which proved very costly to the IDF, ended in an Israeli victory over the Arab states. Israel successfully expanded its borders, previously recommended by the UN General Assembly, and signed armistice agreements with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
Stage I (December 1947 - March 1948)
The Arabs of Palestine who had opposed the UN Partition Resolution took the initiative at the beginning of the war, picking the time and place for their attack. The war was waged, in fact, throughout the country, and focused on:
- Fighting in the cities in which both Jews and Arabs resided, such as Haifa, Safed, Tiberias and Jerusalem. This fighting expressed itself in bursts of gunfire and sharpshooting; attacks on outlying suburbs; and planting explosive charges in Jewish neighborhoods.
- Defending isolated settlements – many Jewish towns and villages were located in regions controlled by the Arabs, some even outside the borders of the territory allocated to the Jewish State in the Partition Plan, cut off from the centers of the Jewish population (such as: Jerusalem, the Etzion Bloc and the settlements in the Negev). Jewish settlements were quickly transformed into military outposts, and both considerable effort and material resources were devoted to their defense and to enabling convoys to reach them with their loads of supplies and equipment. The leaders of the Jewish population decided not to evacuate even a single settlement in order to ensure that whatever territory remained in Jewish hands would be included within the boundaries of the future Jewish State.
- War on the roads – fierce fighting with many casualties took place along the traffic routes. Jewish forces made great efforts to protect their link with the isolated settlements – the only way to do this was by means of armored convoys that tried to transport food supplies and medicines to the isolated villages. Despite this convoy system many settlements remained cut off for long periods of time. An especially fierce struggle took place in attempting to break through the Arab siege of Jerusalem, the roads often being blocked by Arab forces that prevented traffic from reaching the city. The Arabs had the advantage in this struggle because they would sally forth from their villages scattered along the roads and most often controlled the high points overlooking the roads – a clear topographical advantage.
Stage II (April - May 14, 1948)
For both political and military reasons, the Hagana command decided to take the initiative in the fighting. Their operational plan was called “Plan D”, and it included drafting and organizing the Jewish forces in divisions; similarly, it set down operational goals for taking control of all the territory allotted to the Jewish State, including the settlement blocs outside it and other key areas in anticipation of the invasion by the Arab armies.
First priority was given to breaking through to Jerusalem, and for this purpose Operation Nachshon was planned. The forces were armed with weapons collected up from different unity and those acquired from Czechoslovakia, the first shipment of which had just arrived. For the first time it was also decided not to rely on convoys accompanied by fighting men, but rather to take control of areas along the road and to hold them. Operation Nachshon marked the beginning of a new stage in the war – taking the initiative by the Jews and using that Jewish force as a regular army. During the operation a number of convoys got through to Jerusalem, and later on Operations Har-el and Maccabee were carried out in order to take control of strategic points along the road in order to help the convoys through. In this way a few large convoys reached Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, while Operation Nachshon was being implemented, attacks by Fawzi al-Kawukgi’s “Salvation Army” on Mishmar Ha’Emek in the Jezreel Valley and by the Druze Brigade on Ramat Yohanan were repulsed. After this battle the Druze switched from giving support to the Arab side to supporting the Jewish side in the struggle.
The Jewish initiative was maintained, and during April and up until the middle of May Tiberias, Haifa, Acre and Safed were captured. The situation in the Jerusalem area improved, and large tracts of land, including scores of Arab villages, came under Jewish control. The local Arab element was defeated, its leadership disintegrated and most of its leader fled. The Arabs began to flee, thus becoming refugees, and the local Arabs were no longer a relevant military force.
Most of the goals of Plan D were achieved, and the achieving of a strip of territory under Jewish control contributed to the decision of the President of the U.S.A. to suspend the trusteeship program, thus making it possible for the independence of the Jewish State to be proclaimed on May 14, 1948.
Stage III (May 15 – June 1948)
The day after the independence of the State was proclaimed, on Saturday, May 15, 1948, five Arab armies launched an all-out offensive against the State of Israel. The invading forces were regular armies, equipped with armored forces, artillery and air forces. The defenders were the Israeli army, whose armaments and other equipment were considerably less than those of the attackers. The Arab armies were not successful in giving expression to their full capacity or to their advantage; neither did they act in accordance with a single plan or under a single command. It was at this time that the IDF was established on the basis of the Hagana organization, while the other underground groups – the IZL, the Lehi and the Palmach – were disbanded.
The Jewish defenders prepared to block the invasion. A large part in this was played by the settlements whose defenders faced superior attacking forces, yet delayed the advance of the Arab armies (Yad Mordechai, Negba, Degania, Mishmar Hayarden, Gesher and others), and only a few settlements were actually abandoned and fell into enemy hands, such as Massada and Shaar Hagolan which fell to the Syrians, Beit Ha’arava, Atarot and Neve Yaakov to the Jordanians, and Nitzanim to the Egyptians.
The Lebanese army invaded the eastern Upper Galilee, made preparations in the Ramot Naftali region and captured the police station at Nebi Yusha. At the beginning of June the Lebanese attacked and retook Kedesh and Malkiya while “Salvation Army” forces streamed into central Galilee and attacked Sejera, but were stopped and afterwards took almost no part in the offensive.
The Syrian army attacked at Emek Hayarden, succeeded in capturing Tsemah, and began to attack the kibbutzim, Degania Aleph and Beit, with infantry and armored forces assisted by artillery. The defenders successfully repulsed the attack. In doing so, they were assisted by the first cannon to arrive in the country, the “Napoleonchiks”, which were positioned on the hills of Poriah. The Syrians retreated from Emek Hayarden, and concentrated their forces at Mishmar Hayarden. On June 10, the Syrian fiercely attacked Mishmar Hayarden, with additional forces attacking Ein Gev. The attack on Ein Gev was driven off, but Mishmar Hayarden fell to the Syrians, and it was only with great effort that our forces succeeded in blocking their advance on Mahanaim.
The Iraqi army invaded in the area of Gesher. The Iraqis took control of the electricity plant at Naharaim, but failed in their attempt to capture Gesher and then withdrew.
The fighting against the Jordanian Arab Legion took place in the Jerusalem area. The Legion took the Latrun region and blocked the approach to Jerusalem. Three attempts to retake Latrun failed, but in the meantime the area to the west of Latrun was taken, from which the “Burma Road” was rendered passable – thus enabling the links with Jerusalem to be renewed.
The Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem remained cut off.
Forces of the Arab Legion attacked, intending to penetrate into Western Jerusalem as well. They took the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, but were stopped right there. Mt. Scopus remained a Jewish enclave in the Arab section. In southern Jerusalem Jordanian and Egyptian forces attacked Kibbutz Ramat Rahel, and the kibbutz changed hands three times, finally remaining in Israel’s possession.
The Egyptian army invaded the south of the country on two fronts. The main struggle took place along the coastal road northward towards Tel-Aviv, and the secondary one moved toward Jerusalem via Beersheba and Hebron. The Egyptians wanted to advance rapidly to the north, and so attacked settlements in the Negev region, but when they were repulsed – they ceased to threaten them. An Egyptian column advanced as far as Ashdod, where it stopped at the bridge that the IDF had blown up (“The “Thus Far” Bridge). Messerschmidt airplanes just assembled attacked the Egyptian column and caused only light damage, but the Egyptians were surprised and stopped to re-organize.
At the beginning of June, our forces attacked the Egyptian column in an attempt to break through to the isolated Negev settlements. The attack was unsuccessful, yet it caused the Egyptians to stop their advance and dig on where they were. From this point on, the Egyptian army never renewed its northward advance, but rather aimed at taking the remaining Jewish settlements in the area it had already overrun. The Egyptian army was successful at Nitzanim, which fell to it after a prolonged attack. Its repeated attempts to capture Negba failed, and this was true with the other settlements as well that managed to hold out.
The UN involved itself in the matter of Eretz-Israel, and the General Assembly appointed the Swedish count Bernadotte as the mediator on behalf of the UN, to work for a cease-fire and assist in finding a peaceful solution. At the UN’s instigation and Bernadotte’s mediation, the parties agreed to a temporary respite, which went into effect on June 11th for a period of four weeks, during which time political efforts were to be made to attain an acceptable solution.
Stage IV (June 11 – July 18 1948)
The respite was utilized for re-organization, training, and allocation of newly-arrived arms as well as for operational planning in anticipation of a renewal of the fighting, with the intention of taking the initiative. As the end of the respite approached, the UN made great efforts to prevent the renewal of the war, but its efforts were in vain and the fighting was renewed on July 8, 1948. For ten days, fierce fighting took place on all fronts, with the IDF taking the initiative. These battles came to be known as the “Battles of the Ten Days”.
The Egyptians succeeded on the southern front in expanding the wedge they had driven between Majdal and Beit Guvrin and in maintaining the isolation of the Negev. The Egyptian attacks on the kibbutzim Negba and Beerot Yitzhak towards Beer Tuvia were repulsed by the Givati and Hanegev IDF divisions.
On July 9, the IDF launched “Operation Danny” in order to keep the enemy far from Tel-Aviv and to relieve the pressure on Jerusalem. Two additional attempts at liberating Latrun were unsuccessful, and this area remained in the hands of the Arab Legion until the Six Day War of 1967.
In the north the IDF began “Operation Dekel”, which reached its climax with the capture of Nazareth and the liberation of the entire Lower Galilee, from Haifa to Tiberias.
Stage V (July 19 1948 – July 20 1949)
An order issued by the UN Security Council forced both parties to observe a second respite. The order directed the parties to enter into negotiations to achieve an armistice. The Arab states did not accept this directive, and the forced respite left the situation unresolved: the Arab armies were still in Israeli territory, and no political settlement appeared imminent. This situation was uncomfortable for Israel. During this period there was not any continuous fighting, but operations were carried out in order to achieve a clear victory.
On October 15th the IDF launched “Operation Yoav” with the intention of opening the road to the besieged Negev. The operation ended on October 22nd after achieving its aims. As a result the Egyptians found themselves surrounded in a spot which came to be known as the “Faluja Enclave”.
In the north, the IDF launched “Operation Hiram” on October 28th 1948, in which the heart of the Galilee and the Upper Galilee were both liberated. The “Salvation Army” with its commander Fawzi al-Kawukgi were expelled from Israeli territory and fled to Lebanon.
The political activity did not succeed in bringing the Arab states to the negotiating table, and the plan put forward by the mediator, Bernadotte, came up for consideration. Bernadotte proposed to detach the Negev from Israel in return for the inclusion of the Galilee within Israel’s borders. Under these circumstances a military operation was needed to achieve political aims and to remove the threat of detaching the Negev from Israel, as well as to force the Egyptians to open armistice talks with Israel.
On December 22 IDF forces launched “Operation Horev”, an attack intended to expel the Egyptian forces remaining in the Negev, in a narrow strip of land between Uja el-Hafir and Bir el-Asluj. The IDF attacked strongly and achieved in full the aims of the operation. In this context, an Israeli column penetrated into the Sinai Peninsula and reached El-Arish, a maneuver intended to keep the Egyptian alignment off balance. This led to strong intervention on the part of the United States and Great Britain, until Ben-Gurion order the commanding officer of the operation, Yigal Alon, to withdraw his forces to the Negev, across the international border. The Security Council called for a cease-fire, and the United States warned Israel that they would cease supporting Israel if we continued our offensive.
In face of this pressure, the IDF dropped its plans to push the Egyptians out of the Gaza Strip. At the close of Operation Horev on January 7 1949, the entire Negev was under IDF control – except for the Faluja Enclave which remained under siege. This was in effect the end of the fighting in the War of Independence, and armistice talks with Egypt got under way. The agreement with Egypt was signed on February 24, 1949 and a month later, on March 23 1949, an agreement was signed with Lebanon.
On April 3, 1949 an armistice agreement was signed with Jordan, after Jordan had not resisted earlier the Israeli take-over of the Dead Sea area, the Arava and Eilat. After the signing of the agreement, the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, the Etzion Bloc to the south of Jerusalem, and Neve Yaakov and Atarot to the north of it all remained under the control of the Kingdom of Jordan (still Transjordan at that time).
The negotiations with Syria were opened on April 5, 1949 and an agreement with that country was signed much later, on July 20, 1949. The War of Independence ended with the signing of this agreement.
In the War of Independence, from the day the UN General Assembly resolution was adopted until the signing of the armistice agreements, Israel lost some 6,000 killed, including about 2,400 civilians of the Jewish population of the State – almost 1% of the entire population which totaled about 650,000 when the State was proclaimed. Arab casualties came to about 2,000 dead, soldiers in the invading armies, and an unknown number of Eretz-Israel Arab irregulars.