On May 14, as the British Mandate was ending, the Jews of Palestine declared themselves independent. They created the State of Israel, with David Ben-Gurion as the Prime Minister. Immediately, the neighboring Arab nations attacked. Israel succeeded in repulsing the attacks. By the end of the war, the Jewish State was larger than the territory originally assigned to it under the partition plan. In the course of the war, hundreds of thousand of Palestinian Arabs were displaced, some under their own volition and some by force.
