"The 1948 war left in its wake not only a refugee problem but also an
infiltration problem. Each year between 1949 and 1956,
thousands of Palestinian Arabs illegally crossed the border into Israel from Jordan's West Bank, the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, Lebanon, and Syria. (Pag. 28)"
"The vast majority of the infiltrators during the second half of 1948, 1949, and 1950
came unarmed, which would suggest that
their purpose was not political-terrorist. (PAG 51)."
"The
IDF policy of shooting at infiltrators along and near the front lines, initially adopted in June 1948, remained in force along all the borders after the signing of the armistice accords in 1949."
"In private conversations and internal correspondence, Israeli officers made no bones about
the policy of shooting infiltrators, armed or unarmed, bent on harvesting, grazing, resettlement, or sabotage."
"On 4 June 1949, OC Southern Command General Yigal Allon said that he had declared an eight-kilometre-deep strip along the Israeli side of both the Israeli-Jordanian and Israeli-Egyptian borders 'military area:
every stranger found in [them] will be shot, without interrogation'. (He claimed that his had reduced infiltration.)"