Jewish Communities Lost in the War of Independence

During the 1948 War of Independence, over 10,000 Jews living in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip were driven out or killed and their communities, homes and property destroyed or confiscated. A number of Jewish communities (mostly kibbutzim) were captured by the Jordanian army, assisted by Iraqi forces, in Judea and Samaria, and by the Egyptian army in the Gaza Strip.

These communities were: Beit Ha'arava and Kalya north of the Dead Sea; four kibbutzim of the Etzion Bloc, west of Bethlehem; the Jewish Quarter in Hebron; Atarot and Neve Ya'akov, north of Jerusalem; the Jewish Quarter in the old City of Jerusalem; Tel Or/Naharayim - the hydro-electric power station built by Pinhas Rutenberg by the Jordan River south of Lake Kinneret; and Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip.

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