Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel

Israeli Declaration of Independence
Location	Tel Aviv
Author(s)	First Draft: Zvi Berenson Second Draft: Moshe Shertok David Remez Felix Rosenblueth Moshe Shapira Aharon Zisling Third Draft: David Ben-Gurion Yehuda Leib Fishman Aharon Zisling Moshe Shertok
Signatories	David Ben-Gurion Daniel Auster Yitzhak Ben-Zvi Mordechai Bentov Eliyahu Berligne Fritz Bernstein Rachel Cohen-Kagan Eliyahu Dobkin Yehuda Leib Fishman Wolf Gold Meir Grabovsky Avraham Granovsky Yitzhak Gruenbaum Kalman Kahana Eliezer Kaplan Avraham Katznelson Saadia Kobashi Moshe Kolodny Yitzhak-Meir Levin Meir David Loewenstein Zvi Luria Golda Meyerson/Myerson Nahum Nir David-Zvi Pinkas Felix Rosenblueth David Remez Berl Repetur Zvi Segal Mordechai Shatner Ben-Zion Sternberg Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit Haim-Moshe Shapira Moshe Shertok Herzl Vardi Meir Vilner Zerach Warhaftig Aharon Zisling
Purpose	Declare a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine shortly before the expiration of the British Mandate.

The Israeli Declaration of Independence (Hebrew: הכרזת העצמאות‎‎, Hakhrazat HaAtzma'ut or Hebrew: מגילת העצמאות‎‎ Megilat HaAtzma'ut), formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708) by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. It declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, which would come into effect on termination of the British Mandate at midnight that day. The event is celebrated annually in Israel with a national holiday Yom Ha'atzmaut (Hebrew: יום העצמאות‎‎, lit. Independence Day) on 5 Iyar of every year according to the Hebrew calendar.

The possibility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine had been a goal of Zionist organizations since the late 19th century. The British Foreign Secretary stated in the Balfour Declaration of 1917:

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