ABSTRACT

By October 1948, of 1.4 million Palestinians, almost 900,000 had been driven from Palestine and had become refugees in neighboring Arab states. The Israelis prevented the three hundred thousand Palestinians who had become refugees after the initial Zionist offensive of April 1948 from returning. The dispersal of Palestinians marked the beginning of an extended period of homelessness that has touched every Palestinian family. The new reality of refugee life left deep scars. Many refugees refused relief for days. Relief symbolized the new dependency, the loss of the means of economic production, and the collapse of national existence. The Palestinian inhabitants of the coast and the area west of Jerusalem, where most of the military action took place, suffered from lack of arms and defense systems. Most Palestinians believed that in a matter of days the ordeal would end and they would be allowed to return to their towns and villages.