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The Arabs not only rejected partition, but attacked Israel from all sides. On the day that Israel declared its independence, the Arab League Secretary, General Azzam Pasha declared "jihad", a holy war. He said, "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades". The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseini stated, "I declare a holy war, my Moslem brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!" The armies of lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq invaded the tiny new country with the declared intent of destroying it.
During the war For Israel's independence, many Jewish villages were destroyed, synagogues and cemeteries desecrated, and fields and buildings burned. The Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem was beseiged, and kept without food or water, and eventually the Jordanians expelled the Jews from the Old City. The grey area on the inset marks the Old City. The Jordanians took over East Jerusalem and a large portion of land on the west bank of the Jordan River, thereby narrowing Israel, seen here in blue, to approxirmately nine miles at its narrowest point. Egyptian troops overran the Gaza strip in the west as well as the southern outskirts of Jerusalem. Despite tremendous losses, the new Jewish state survived. In 1949 Israel signed armistice agreements with Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Transjordan, which in April 1949 changed its name to Jordan. One of the major consequences of this was Jordan's annexation of Judea and Samaria. This annexation was not recognized by the international community, with the exception of Britain and Pakistan. This territory became a launching ground for constant terrorist attacks against Israel's civilian population.
Arab-Israeli Wars
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