Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war

Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and unarmed soldiers.

Historians disagree concerning the effect these killings and massacres had on the 1948 Palestinian exodus and if whether or not these killings and massacres were carried out with the intent of hastening it.

After about 30 years of nationalist conflict in Mandatory Palestine between Palestinian Arabs and Jewish Zionists and while no agreement could be found between parties, the British decided in February 1947 to terminate the Mandate and, on 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II) recommending the adoption and implementation of a plan of partition of Palestine.

The vote was immediately followed by a civil war in which Palestinian Arabs (supported by the Arab Liberation Army) and Palestinian Jews, fought against each other while the region was still fully under British rule. On 15 May 1948, following the Israeli Declaration of Independence the previous day, the armies of a number of Arab countries invaded what had just ceased to be Mandatory Palestine, turning it into the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

The war caused the death of more than 20,000 people. The yishuv and later the Israelis suffered between 5,700 and 5,800 dead. The number of victims on the Arab side is unclear, but according to Benny Morris, it might have been slightly higher. In his book, Morris also mentions an estimation of 12,000 by Haj Amin al-Husseini in 1950. These losses amounted to around 1 percent of the population of each community.

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