Historical Background and Interviews
III. A New Beginning A New Beginning
burning of fields, and bombings of the country’s railroads, roads, and water lines. Israel filed complaints with the Mixed Armistice Commission, which was charged with monitoring the situation, but the commission did nothing. Finally, the IDF began to take retalia- tory action across the borders. 5 Israel suffered devastating losses of human life between No - vember 1947 and January 1949. As demobilized soldiers struggled to reenter and build a new society, “statistics...cannot fully convey the pain and the sorrow of this war, by far the most difficult fought by the State of Israel and the only one in which it may have come close to defeat, if not physical extinction.” 6
1. Jehuda Wallach, Carta’s Atlas of Palestine: From Zionism to Statehood 2. Howard M. Sachar, A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 327 3. Martin Van Creveld, The Sword and the Olive.- A Critical History of the Israeli De- fense Force, p. 89 4. Tom Segcv. 1949: The First Israelis 5. Segev. Ibid. 6. Van Creveld, Ibid., p. 99 :
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