Table of Contents
Overview
The 1947 to 1949 war did not only decide who controlled which parts of the former British Mandate. It also produced two closely linked outcomes that still shape the conflict today. One was the mass displacement of Palestinians who became refugees. The other was the drawing of armistice lines between Israel and its neighbors, which created what later became known as the Green Line. Understanding how these two processes unfolded together is essential, because the refugee question and the status of the borders were connected from the very beginning.
The Making of the Palestinian Refugee Problem
During the fighting that followed the UN Partition Plan, large numbers of Palestinian Arabs left or were forced to leave their homes in areas that came under Israeli control. By the end of the war, roughly three quarters of a million Palestinians were outside the borders of the new State of Israel. Some fled earlier, during local clashes, fear, and breakdown of order. Others were expelled during specific military operations that aimed to secure areas or remove perceived threats.
The displacement was not a single, coordinated event but a series of movements over many months. In some cities, leadership collapse, rumors of massacres, and fear of approaching battles led to mass departures even before the main Arab armies entered the war. In some rural areas, Israeli forces ordered villagers to leave or directly expelled them. In a few places, people left with the expectation of soon returning after a hope for Arab victory. Outcomes varied from town to town and village to village, which is why debates about responsibility and intent are still intense.
By mid 1949, most Palestinians who had left or been expelled from what became Israel were not allowed to return. Many ended up in neighboring Arab states or in parts of Palestine that did not come under Israeli control. They quickly became a distinct population category, referred to as Palestinian refugees, with a legal and political status that differed from other residents of those countries.
Routes of Flight and Host Societies
The direction in which Palestinians fled was largely shaped by geography and the course of the fighting. People from the coastal plain and the north often moved toward Lebanon and Syria. Those from the central and southern parts of the country moved into the West Bank, which came under Jordanian control, or into the Gaza Strip, which came under Egyptian control. Some fled only a short distance and ended up just across the future armistice lines. Others moved farther, to cities such as Amman, Damascus, and Beirut.
In the early months, many refugees stayed with relatives or sympathetic hosts, hoping that their displacement would be temporary. As the war dragged on and it became clear that there would be no quick return, larger and more permanent camps began to form. These camps often stood just beyond the lines that separated Israel from its neighbors. Their location reinforced a sense of proximity to the lost homes, but also a feeling of being trapped and dependent.
Host states reacted in different ways. Jordan later granted citizenship to many Palestinian refugees in the territory it controlled, especially in the West Bank and East Bank, though their situation remained politically sensitive. Lebanon and Syria, by contrast, generally allowed residence but not full integration, restricting some social and economic rights. In Egypt controlled Gaza, Palestinians had neither Egyptian citizenship nor an independent state. These differences in legal status would strongly influence Palestinian political organization and identity.
The Creation of UNRWA and the Refugee Category
The scale and persistence of Palestinian displacement led the United Nations to create a special agency in 1949, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, usually called UNRWA. Unlike the broader UN refugee agency that deals with refugees worldwide, UNRWA was designed specifically for Palestinians in a defined region.
UNRWA registered refugees who had lived in Palestine and lost both home and livelihood as a result of the conflict, and who were in need of assistance. Registration soon covered hundreds of thousands of people in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza. The agency provided food, basic healthcare, and schooling, often in camps that became semi permanent communities.
Over time, refugee status within the UNRWA system was passed down through the generations. Descendants of those originally displaced continued to be counted as refugees if they met certain criteria. This created a situation in which the Palestinian refugee issue was not limited to those who had experienced 1948 directly, but now included millions of people who grew up in exiled communities. The existence of a specialized agency, specific registration, and long term camps made the Palestinian refugee question a highly visible and institutionalized part of the conflict.
Depopulated Villages and Property Loss
The transformation of the landscape inside Israel was another important aspect of the refugee story. Hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated during the war and its immediate aftermath. Some were destroyed, others were left standing but were not re populated by their original inhabitants. In many places, new Jewish communities or forests were later established on or near the sites of these villages.
Alongside the physical loss of homes, refugees lost farmland, businesses, and personal property. After the war, Israel adopted laws and administrative arrangements that classified many of these properties as belonging to absentees. The state took control of them and used them for public purposes or to settle new immigrants. From the Palestinian perspective, this translated not only into the loss of homes but also into a deep sense of dispossession that became central to their national consciousness.
The issue of property rights and compensation has remained unresolved. Palestinian refugees and their descendants maintain claims to their former lands and houses, often preserving keys, deeds, and memories. Israeli authorities, on the other hand, treat most of these properties as permanently transferred, arguing that the broader context of war and population movements must be taken into account.
Drawing the Armistice Lines
While Palestinians were becoming refugees, the military and diplomatic process of fixing the front lines into formal armistice lines was underway. The war did not end with a single peace treaty. Instead, Israel and each neighboring Arab state signed separate armistice agreements in 1949, which turned shifting battle lines into recognized boundaries for the purpose of ending active fighting.
The armistice line between Israel and Jordan was drawn along what became known as the Green Line, named for the color of the pen used on the maps. It left Israel in control of West Jerusalem and most of the former Mandate territory west of the Jordan River, while Jordan controlled East Jerusalem and the bulk of the central highlands, which became known as the West Bank. The line sometimes followed roads, hills, or existing front lines, but often cut through villages, farmland, and even neighborhoods.
In the north, the armistice with Lebanon largely followed the previous Mandatory boundary, but with some adjustments. To the northeast, the agreement with Syria created several demilitarized zones along the frontier. In the south, the agreement with Egypt left the Gaza Strip under Egyptian administration, separated from both Israel and the rest of the Arab world by armistice lines that limited movement in and out.
None of these lines were described in the agreements as final borders. The texts typically stated that they were military demarcation lines, without prejudice to future political settlements or territorial claims. However, over time, the armistice lines gained increasing practical and symbolic significance, shaping how Israelis, Palestinians, and the international community thought about the map of the conflict.
The Green Line and Its Ambiguous Status
The Green Line quickly became more than just a military frontier. On the Israeli side, it defined the area under the effective control of the new state and separated it from Arab controlled territories. For Palestinians, it separated those who remained inside Israel from those in the West Bank and Gaza who had not become Israeli citizens. For refugees, it marked the point beyond which they could see, but not legally cross, to return to their homes.
Internationally, the Green Line roughly coincided with the territory over which Israel was recognized as sovereign. Many states and organizations used it as the reference point for diplomatic maps and discussions. Yet, because the line was not formally accepted by Arab governments as a political border, it existed in an in between legal space. It was accepted as a practical boundary, but not as a final solution.
This ambiguity created room for different narratives. Many Israelis came to view the area inside the Green Line as the legitimate and secure core of the state, even if some political groups later challenged it. Many Palestinians, particularly refugees outside Israel, saw the line as an artificial barrier that froze in place the results of a war they considered unjust. They understood the Green Line not as a compromise, but as the marker of their exclusion.
Refugees at the Edge of the Armistice Lines
The locations of the armistice lines had a direct effect on refugees. In multiple areas, Palestinian villages ended up just on the far side of the line, with the village lands partly inside Israel and partly outside. This led to complex arrangements where families were divided and agricultural land was cut off from its owners.
Some Palestinians tried to cross back into Israel across the armistice lines, either to harvest crops, retrieve possessions, or resettle in their villages. Israeli authorities, seeing such crossings as security risks and potential precedents for mass return, often treated them harshly. Clashes occurred along the lines, and the term "infiltrators" emerged in Israeli discourse to describe these return attempts, whether motivated by economic need, family ties, or armed activity.
The armistice agreements contained mechanisms for mixed armistice commissions and local liaison offices to address incidents along the lines. In practice, these bodies struggled to manage the combination of refugee pressures, border incidents, and mutual distrust. Violent episodes along the lines helped fix them in place as hardened frontiers, while also deepening resentment on both sides.
Legal and Political Debates Over Return and Borders
Once the fighting stopped, two broad sets of questions became central. One related to people, the other to territory. The question for people was whether and how Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to their homes, or receive compensation or resettlement elsewhere. The question for territory was whether the armistice lines would be turned into recognized borders, or be revised in later negotiations.
International bodies, including the UN General Assembly, passed resolutions that spoke in favor of allowing refugees to return to their homes and live at peace, or to receive compensation if they chose not to return. Israel argued that mass return would endanger the Jewish character and security of the state, and that responsibility for the refugee problem should be shared by the Arab states that had opposed the partition and gone to war. Arab states and Palestinian representatives, in turn, focused on the right of return and rejected moves that appeared to make the armistice lines into permanent political borders.
As a result, both issues remained unresolved. The armistice lines functioned as de facto borders, but without a final, mutually agreed status. Refugees remained outside Israel with recognition as a distinct group, but without a practical mechanism for large scale return or comprehensive compensation. Negotiations in later decades would repeatedly circle back to these unresolved problems, showing how deeply the events of 1947 to 1949 shaped the basic structure of the conflict.
Lasting Impact on Identity and Geography
Over time, the combination of refugee camps, armistice lines, and the evolving political geography of the region contributed to a divided Palestinian experience. Some Palestinians grew up as citizens within the Green Line, as a minority in Israel. Others grew up in the West Bank and Gaza, under Jordanian and Egyptian administration and later under Israeli occupation. Still others lived across the borders in Arab states as refugees, often in camps.
For Israelis, the armistice lines defined the space in which the state built its institutions, absorbed large numbers of Jewish immigrants, and developed its sense of territorial normality. For Palestinians, the armistice lines embodied the loss of land and separation from former homes, while the refugee status reinforced a shared narrative of dispossession and a demand for redress.
Thus, the refugee question and the armistice lines cannot be understood separately. The refugees exist largely because the front lines of the war solidified where they did, and the armistice lines acquired their meaning partly because of the people left on either side of them. Later chapters will return to how these intertwined issues have been addressed, challenged, and re imagined in subsequent wars, peace efforts, and political debates.