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The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It began as a civil war between the Arab and Jewish communities following the United Nations Partition Plan and became an international conflict with the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, the termination of the British mandate, and the entry of the armies of neighbouring Arab states into Palestine. During the war, Zionist forces conquered about 78% of the former territory of the mandate causing the expulsion and flight of over 700,000 Palestinians. Transjordan took control of the territory west of the Jordan River and Egypt occupied the coastal territory around Gaza. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which established the Green Line de facto borders of the State of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. It was the first war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab–Israeli conflict.
Image: Chalil Rissas, Public domain · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
