A tank unit of the Israeli defence forces prepares to continue its advance during the 1948 (or First) Arab-Israeli War, the second and final stage of the 1947-1949 Palestine War. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had been issued earlier that day, and a military coalition of Arab states entered the territory of British Palestine in the morning of 15 May