The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, also known by Israelis as the War of Independence and by Palestinians as al Nakba (Arabic: النكبة, "the Catastrophe") was the first in a series of wars fought between the Israel and its Arab neighbors in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict. The war marked the establishment of the State of Israel, and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from the territories that would become part of the State of Israel.

The War was fought entirely on the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine commencing immediately on the termination of the Mandate on 15 May 1948 and ended with the conclusion of the 1949 Armistice Agreements.