The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, known by the Israelis predominantly as War of Independence (מלחמת העצמאות) and War of Liberation (מלחמת השחרור), and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe (Arabic: al Nakba, النكبة ) was the first in a series of wars fought between the newly declared State of Israel and its Arab neighbors in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.

The War commenced on the termination of the Mandate on 15 May 1948 following a previous phase of war of 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, commenced in Arab rejection of the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (UN General Assembly Resolution 181) that would have created an Arab state and a Jewish state. The War was fought mostly on the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine, and for a short time also on the Sinai Peninsula. While the 1948 war was concluded with the 1949 Armistice Agreements it has not marked the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict.