British Army in Palestine - the last days - may 1948
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Palestine Mandate, also the Mandate for Palestine,or the British Mandate for Palestine, was a League of Nations Mandate drafted by the principal Allied and associated powers after the First World War and formally approved by the League of Nations in 1922. By the power granted under the mandate, Britain ruled Palestine in the years 1920-1948, a period in history referred to as the "British Mandate.
Termination of the Mandate
The British had notified the U.N. of their intent to terminate the mandate not later than 1 August 1948.[97], but Jewish Leadership led by future Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, declared independence on 14 May. The State of Israel declared itself as an independent nation, and was quickly recognized by the Soviet Union, the United States, and many other countries, but not by the surrounding Arab states. Over the next few days, approximately 1,000 Lebanese, 5,000 Syrian, 5,000 Iraqi, 10,000 Egyptian troops invaded Israel. Four thousand Transjordanian troops, commanded by 38 British officers who had resigned their commissions in the British army only weeks earlier (commanded by General Glubb), invaded the Corpus separatum region encompassing Jerusalem and its environs, as well as areas designated as part of the Arab state by the UN partition plan. On the date of British withdrawal, the Jewish provisional government declared the formation of the State of Israel, and the provisional government said that it would grant full civil rights to all within its borders, whether Arab, Jew, Bedouin or Druze