The next day, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Iraq launched an attack on Israel with the aim of destroying the new nation. This was the start of the first major Arab-Israeli war (Rowen 2007, p.1). In 1949, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Transjordan became Jordan and Israel. Israel defeated the Arabs in the war, allowing it to gain most of the land that the UN had designated for the Palestinians. Egypt and Jordan occupied the remainder of the area allocated to the Palestinians (Reich 2014, p.8). Israel took control of the West Bank, a territory between Israel and the Jordan River. Additionally, Israel took control of the western half of Jerusalem and the eastern half was held by Jordan (USATODAY.com 2001, p.1). Israel incorporated the territory into the new country, which added approximately 150,000 resentful Arabs to its population (Reich 2014 p. 34). In 1949, Israel signed ceasefire agreements with Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. However, peace treaties were not signed because Arab countries refused to recognize the existence of Israel. As a result of the war, more than 700,000 Palestinians have become refugees, most of them fleeing to Jordan or the Gaza Strip (Vogele 2014