The termination of the Mandate for Palestine, approved by the League of Nations in 1922, and administered by Britain, on 15 May 1948. While UN General Assembly Resolution 181 called for the Mandate to end no later than 1 August 1948, Britain announced in December 1947 its intention to bring the date forward to 15 May. The original plan called for authority to be transferred to a United Nations commission, but on that date, Britain evacuated its civilian and military personnel without an orderly transfer of the administration. On the day before, the independence of Israel was declared, with its leaders seeing it as the Jewish state envisioned in Resolution 181. Upon termination of the Mandate, Palestine was invaded by seven Arab countries, marking the second stage of the 1948 War.