After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War (known to Israelis as the "War of Independence" and to Palestinians as al-Nakba, or "The Catastrophe") and the 1948 Palestinian exodus, many Palestinians who either fled or were expelled from their towns and villages, whether they had had altogether ventured beyond what became Israel (largely into the neighbouring Arab countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt) or were internally displaced, tried for many year since then to return to the places they had left. The Israeli Government enacted the Prevention of Infiltration Law in order to forbid and impede, what under the law receives the name of "infiltration", into Israel.[citation needed].