The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, known by the Israelis predominantly as the War of Independence and the War of Liberation, and by Palestinians as al Nakba ("the Catastrophe"), is the first in a series of wars fought between the newly declared State of Israel and its Arab neighbors in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.Commencing immediately on the termination of the Mandate on May 15, 1948, the war is fought mostly on the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine, and for a short time also on the Sinai Peninsula, marking an exodus of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from their residency.

While the 1948 war is concluded with the 1949 Armistice Agreements it does not mark the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict.