This period constitutes the first phase of the 1948 Palestine war, during which the Jewish and Arab communities of Palestine clashed, while the British, who supposedly had the obligation to maintain order, organized their withdrawal and intervened only on an occasional basis. The next phase of the conflict was the 1948 Arab-Israeli War which began on the 15 May 1948, on the termination of the British Mandate of Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel, when the conflict in Palestine became an outright war between the new State of Israel and its Arab neighbours.