The territorial dispute between Israel and her neighbors regarding the status of Palestine has been the major source of conflict among Levantine states of the eastern Mediterranean since World War II. The United Kingdom employed elements of the Jordanian Arab Legion to help garrison Palestine during World War H. Jordan continued to maintain some soldiers on station after gaining her own independence in 1946, but did not commit them to overt operations until April 1948. Jordan occupied part of Palestine at the end of the Palestine War in 1949. She annexed occupied territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River that housed large numbers of Arab Palestinian war refugees in December 1949. Egypt barred Israeli shipping from the Suez Canal after the Palestine War and attempted to prevent Israeli access to the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aqaba.