On 29 November 1947, the U.N. approved the creation of two states in Palestine: one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews took up arms to give birth to their state; the Arab countries did the same to prevent the enterprise at all costs. The first Arab-Israeli War began.
Many Arab villagers fled from the violence, abandoning their hamlets to take refuge in the neighboring nations, with the hope of returning at the end of the war, convinced that it was only a matter of time. On the other hand, militarized Jewish groups forced the evacuation of the Arab villages they conquered. The war reached Galilee, and on April 17 and 18, 1948, the Arab dwellers of Tiberias, fearing for their lives, fled to Nazareth and Jordan.
Convinced by their Jewish neighbors of Migdal and Ginnosar, on 22 April 1948, the people of el-Mejdel made the decision to leave their village. They sold the neighbors some weapons and a bus they had and went for Jordan, never to return. According to statistics published three years earlier, 360 Muslims were the total population of el-Mejdel. When Fr. Bellarmino Bagatti passed by that land a few years later, he wrote: "The houses of the mukhtar have been destroyed, and the place is abandoned." Today, in the place of the hamlet, there is a small recreational park run by an Arab-Israeli family.
