It was never a country, anymore than New England is a country.
But to hear the propaganda, these Palestinian Muslims were displaced from their country to make room for the Jews. -Tom
It’s worse than that. They weren’t displaced, they displaced themselves. The Arab world said to the people there that they were going to invade and kill all the Jewish settlers, and that after the quick war was over, they could move back and have their old apartment back, or move into the newly vacated one of the dead Jews, suit yourself.
And then the 1948 war did not go as planned.