Israel invades the gaza strip.

The Jewish armed organizations were illegal terrorists to the British, right up until the day they left. The Brits would raid their weapon hidey-holes and imprison their members regularly. Tanks and planes are not the sort of thing one can hide.
After the British left, the different movements were unified into the IDF, but not without difficulty. (google "Altalena")

As for "way, way past" - first of all, the whole country is tiny. There is no "way, way". But yes, the Jews did try for wider, more defensible borders (the UN partition would have been well for friendly neighbors, but utterly untenable if they insisted on being enemies).

They why on earth does Wikipedia say Arab nations were bombed by planes?