The following day the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan and Iraq launched an attack against Israel with the aim of destroying the new nation. This was the beginning of the first major Arab-Israeli war (Rowen 2007, p.1). In 1949, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan became known as Jordan and Israel. Israel defeated the Arabs in the war, resulting in Israel gaining most of the land that the United Nations had earmarked for the Palestinians. Egypt and Jordan occupied the remainder of the area allocated to the Palestinians (Reich 2014, p.8). Israel gained control of the West Bank, a territory between Israel and the Jordan River. Furthermore, Israel gained control of the western half of Jerusalem and the eastern half passed to 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 had signed ceasefire agreements with Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. However, the peace treaties were not signed because the Arab countries refused to recognize Israel's existence. Due to the war, more than 700,000 Palestinians became refugees, resulting in most of them fleeing to Jordan or the Gaza Strip (Vogele 2014