The Nakba of 1948
Updated: Aug 16
The Palestine War and the Nakba (1948)
The period between 1947 and 1949 was the most decisive period in modern Palestinian history, and it had a profound and deeply negative impact on the Palestinian people and their future.
When Britain referred the Palestine question to the United Nations in April 1947, the balance of power on the ground had shifted in favor of the Zionist movement and at the expense of the Palestinians—a shift to which Britain itself had contributed. Benefiting from the diplomatic and political gains provided by the Partition Plan adopted in November 1947, and relying on strong American support, Zionist forces launched an offensive campaign in which they seized territory beyond the partition lines, destroyed entire Palestinian villages and towns, and emptied them of their Palestinian inhabitants, most of whom became refugees. The limited Arab support, both militarily and politically, failed to prevent the Palestinian Nakba.
Britain’s policy in Palestine since the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and the confrontations that resulted from it between the Zionist movement and the Palestinians over control of the country’s future, left the Mandate authorities unable to address the situation politically or militarily. This ultimately led Britain, in April 1947, to refer the question of Palestine’s future to the United Nations, at a time when approximately one-third of Palestine’s population was Jewish and two-thirds were Palestinian Arabs.
On May 15, 1947, the United Nations established UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine) to formulate a plan for Palestine after the end of the Mandate. The committee toured the Middle East and Europe, visiting camps housing thousands of Jewish displaced persons who had survived the Nazi concentration camps. At the conclusion of its work, and based on the proposal supported by the majority of its members, the committee recommended a plan to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, while designating Jerusalem and its surrounding area as an international zone.
However, the boundaries proposed by the committee were impractical. Each of the two proposed states consisted of three main areas that were barely connected to one another. The plan also allocated a larger area to the proposed Jewish state than to the Arab state, although only about half of its population was Jewish. The minority of UNSCOP members proposed an alternative plan rejecting partition in favor of a federal state.
On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the majority proposal of UNSCOP. While the Zionists publicly accepted partition, the Arab states and the Arab Higher Committee, which functioned as the de facto Palestinian leadership, rejected it. Fighting between Arabs and Jews in Palestine erupted immediately after the UN partition vote.
The Arab forces were far smaller and considerably less organized than the Jewish forces, which consisted of the Haganah and its full-time offensive force, the Palmach, as well as two smaller militias: Irgun Tsvai Leumi (the National Military Organization, also known as the Etzel) and Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, known as Lehi or the Stern Gang).
By contrast, there was no Palestinian fighting force in the conventional sense. The principal armed organization was the Army of the Holy Jihad, established by the Arab Higher Committee and commanded by Abd al-Qadir al-Husseini, which operated primarily in the Jerusalem area. In northern Palestine, the Arab Liberation Army, sponsored by the Arab League and composed of volunteers from neighboring Arab countries, operated under the command of Lebanese officer Fawzi al-Qawuqji. A number of Palestinian villages also established their own local militias for self-defense.
By May 1948, the advancing Zionist forces had captured several major cities, including Jaffa, Haifa, and Tiberias, as well as large areas of the proposed Arab state under the partition plan, particularly in the Galilee. Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled before the advancing forces, becoming refugees in neighboring countries. This flight was fueled by reports among the population of atrocities and massacres committed by Zionist militias, including the Deir Yassin massacre, in which Zionist paramilitary forces killed more than 100 Palestinian villagers.
On May 14, 1948, the day the last British soldiers and administrators left Palestine, Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of a Jewish state called Israel.
The Nakba constituted one of the largest processes of ethnic cleansing of the twentieth century. More than 800,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their villages and towns through armed force and threats by Zionist militias, fleeing to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and neighboring Arab countries. This represented the displacement of the majority of the approximately 1.4 million Palestinians living in historic Palestine in 1948, with Jewish immigrants and settlers subsequently taking their place.
Zionist militias seized more than 85% of the area of historic Palestine, which covered approximately 27,000 km², including its resources and inhabitants—more than three-quarters of the total area of historic Palestine.
Haganah… “Brutal Militias” That Formed the Core of the Israeli Occupation Army
During the Nakba, Zionist militias also seized control of 774 Palestinian villages and towns. Of these, 531 were completely destroyed, erasing their cultural and historical landmarks, while the remaining communities were brought under the control of the occupying state and subjected to its laws.
Deir Yassin, 1948
The Zionist militias committed more than 70 massacres against Palestinians, each constituting a war crime and a crime against humanity. These massacres are classified within the framework of genocidal crimes, including the Deir Yassin Massacre.
A Destroyed Neighborhood During the 1948 War
Approximately 10,000 Egyptian soldiers, commanded by Brigadier General Ahmed Ali al-Mawawi, took part in the battles of the Nakba, along with 4,500 Jordanian soldiers under the overall command of Glubb Pasha, 2,500 Iraqi soldiers commanded by Brigadier General Muhammad al-Zubaidi, 1,876 Syrian soldiers under the command of Colonel Abd al-Wahhab al-Hakim, 450 Lebanese soldiers, and 3,200 Saudi soldiers commanded by Colonel Saeed Bey al-Kurdi, with Commander Abdullah bin Nami serving as his deputy. In addition, approximately 3,000 Arab volunteers from across the Arab countries participated, forming what became known as the Arab Liberation Army, including 500 Palestinians.
According to several historical sources, approximately 15,000 Palestinians were killed in the battles of the Nakba, while the number of Arab fatalities has been estimated at between 3,500 and 7,000.
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