What the Israelis called their War of Independence -- fighting back after newborn Israel was attacked by Egypt, Syria and Lebanon -- Palestinians call "Nakhbah," Arabic for catastrophe.

Some 700,000 Arabs lost their lands and homes in the struggle. Hundreds of Arab villages were destroyed by Jewish soldiers or taken over by Israeli settlers.

The Palestinians who fled found their way to Egypt's Gaza Strip, to Jordan's West Bank and to points beyond -- to Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, to Europe and the United States.

Over the next three years, as Jewish immigrants flooded the new state, nearly doubling Israel's population, several hundred thousand Palestinians flooded U.N. refugee camps, which started as little more than tent cities.

Later, many returned to live as minorities in Israel, and their descendants are still there. But many of their children and grandchildren have grown up in the same refugee camps scattered about the Middle East.

About 1 million Arabs live today among Israel's 4.5 million Jews and call themselves Arab Israelis.

Another 2.5 million live in overcrowded cities and settlements along the margins of Israel, in Gaza and the West Bank.

And about 3.5 million -- grandchildren or great-grandchildren of the Palestinians who fled in 1948 -- still live in sprawling, miserable refugee camps on the outskirts of Amman, Beirut and Damascus. Arab nations have used the Palestinians' cause as a rallying cry against Israel while doing little to directly aid those living in the camps.

Most of the Arabs who have remained as minorities in Israel are Muslim, although many are Christian, a minority within a minority. They live, for the most part, in segregated neighborhoods in the cities or in their own suburbs or towns. Many are college educated. They have representation in the Israeli government in Jerusalem.

Arab towns in the Galilee area are picturesque, with white-washed houses and schools where the favorite sport is soccer and the second-favorite is basketball. Arab neighborhoods in the cities seem more crowded.

The Palestinians whose families fled to the West Bank and Gaza after 1948 live in crowded, gloomy cities that are crumbling from a lack of resources and cohesive leadership. Nevertheless, it is from the West Bank and Gaza that Palestinians hope to establish their own homeland.

Gaza and the West Bank have been occupied by Israel since 1967, although Israel has returned much of the Gaza Strip and seven West Bank towns to Palestinian self-rule since 1993, when the two sides signed interim peace accords in Oslo. Further withdrawals have been discussed, but peace talks are near collapse.

Poverty is epidemic in the Palestinian communities. Many Palestinians are jobless -- unemployment is about 40 percent in Gaza and 31 percent on the West Bank, according to figures from the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction.

There is little industry in Gaza or the West Bank; Israel is where the jobs are. But many Palestinians who commute to Israel to work can't be certain on any given day that they will be able to show up tomorrow. Israel, reacting to terrorist acts or rock-throwing protesters, closes the borders frequently, keeping thousands from work and causing layoffs.

Because they live in an arid area, the Palestinians depend on Israel for almost everything, including food and medical supplies. When the roads are blocked, the necessities of life don't get in, either.

The younger generation of Palestinians has been called traumatized, children who know more about rocks, guns, bombs and barbed wire than schoolbooks. Many have had little schooling.

Needless to say, Palestinians find nothing to celebrate with Israelis this year.

"For Palestinians, the 50th anniversary of Israel is a reminder of their anguish. It scratches their wounds," said Hisham Ahmed, an American-educated political scientist who grew up in one of the refugee camps.

Copyright © 1998 The Seattle Times Company