FACTBOX: Israel's painful birth in 1948
(Reuters) - Israel, which marks its 60th anniversary on Thursday, has roots in the 19th-century Zionist movement, which saw a state on land the Bible said God gave to the Jews as an answer to centuries of Jewish persecution in Europe.
When World War One ended Turkish control of the Middle East, the League of Nations gave Britain the Palestine Mandate in 1920, endorsing its "Balfour Declaration" to create "a national home for the Jewish people" and to protect the rights of Arabs.
As fighting broke out in Palestine in 1948, 1.4 million Arabs lived there alongside 720,000 Jews. Two thirds of these were born abroad, notably in central and eastern Europe where the Nazis had killed six million Jews in the Holocaust.
Historians still hotly debate much of what happened but the following is a brief chronology of the partition of Palestine:
November 29, 1947 - United Nations General Assembly approves plan to create Arab and Jewish states and international rule for Jerusalem. The plan wins acceptance from Jewish leaders but is rejected by the Arab League.
January 1948 - Arab Liberation Army (ALA), comprising Palestinians and other Arabs, sets up strongpoints in strategic spots. British report to U.N. estimates 1,974 people killed or injured in Palestine from November 30, 1947 to January 10, 1948.
April 9-10 - Jewish guerrillas kill about 100 Arabs, or more by some estimates, at Deir Yassin near Jerusalem. Details remain disputed but talk of massacre prompts many Arabs to flee homes.
April 13 - In increasingly bitter bloodshed, Arab forces kill 79 Jews in attack on Jerusalem medical convoy.
May 14 - David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel hours before the British Mandate is due to end at midnight. It is the 5th of Iyar, 5708 according to the Jewish calendar.
May 15 - Forces from five Arab countries attack Israel. U.N. says 770,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes.
May 28 - Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City falls to Jordan Legion. About 1,300 Jews sent to West Jerusalem and 300 fighters sent to camps in Jordan. Most buildings in the quarter, including 58 of its 59 synagogues, are demolished.
June 11 - First truce begins, lasting until 8 July.
June 23 - Defying U.N. arms embargo and raising fears of a Jewish civil war, paramilitary Irgun commander Menachem Begin approaches Tel Aviv with arms and 940 Jewish migrants aboard the Altalena. Artillery commander Yitzhak Rabin sinks the ship. Both Begin and Rabin will later serve as prime ministers of Israel.
June 28 - Swedish U.N. mediator Count Folke Bernadotte proposes peace plan - Jerusalem to be Arab. Both sides say No.
June 30 - Last British troops leave.
July 8 - Egyptian army attacks from around Ashdod. In the "Ten Days" that follow, Israelis take Lydda (Lod) and Ramle, break the siege of West Jerusalem and advance in the north.
July 19 - Second truce.
September 17 - Day after proposing a new peace plan, Folke Bernadotte was killed by Jewish Stern Gang gunmen in Jerusalem.
October 15 - Israeli "Operation Yoav" breaks Egyptian siege of Jewish settlements in Negev. Beersheba is taken. In the north, "Operation Hiram" defeats Arab armies and Israeli forces take control of the Galilee in 60 hours of fighting.
December 22 - Israeli forces launch "Operation Horev", advancing into Egypt's Sinai peninsula. It later withdrew.
January 25, 1949 - Ben-Gurion's Mapai Party, forerunner of today's Labour, wins the first Israeli general election.
February 24 - Israel signs armistice with Egypt.
March 10 - Israeli forces take Umm Rashrash, now Eilat, opening access to Red Sea, in final military action of the war.
July 20 - Israel-Syria armistice ends war. Jordan controls West Bank and East Jerusalem, Egypt occupies Gaza Strip.
December 5 - Prime Minister Ben-Gurion lays out Israeli claim to Jerusalem as its "eternal capital". It moves parliament to West Jerusalem from Tel Aviv three weeks later.
(Sources: Reuters, Encyclopaedia Britannica, www.palestineremembered.com, here ) "Jerusalem in 1948," by Rami Yezreal, publisher Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi 1987, "Decisive Operations-Operation Hiram", by Haya Regev and Avigail Oren, Israeli Education Ministry, 1995), U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181, www.knesset.gov.il)
(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit;)
