Did the Israeli Army actually force innocent Arabs to leave their homes during the wars in 1948 and 1967 ?

Most definitely. Palestinians were ethnically cleansed on a large scale in:
  • The Nakba which is Arabic for “catastrophe” or “calamity”, and it refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine at the hand of Zionist militias between 1947-1948 and the subsequent establishment of the state of Israel. This campaign of ethnic cleansing took place before, during and after the war of 1948, and saw approximately 800,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes, over 530 Palestinian communities demolished, over 15,000 Palestinians killed in a series of mass atrocities, and massacres, of which 156 were recorded in Table 3.2 Atlas of Palestine 1917- 1966. Today, Israel can only maintain itself as an ethnocracy by perpetuating the displacement of these refugees and their descendants.
A Palestinian man watches over a school in a refugee camp, 1948.
Palestinians being expelled from their homes in Haifa by soldiers from the forerunner of the Israeli army, weeks before Israel declared independence. April 1948.
  • The Naksa which is Arabic for ”the setback“ was a continuation of a prior central event that paved the way for the 1967 war. Nineteen years earlier, in 1948, the state of Israel came into being in a violent process that entailed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. In 1967, the remainder of Palestine was invaded and occupied by the Zionists and over 350,000 Palestinian were expelled or fled. In the 1970’s, the “Judaization of the Galilee” (the term Zionists use to describe the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from this area for exclusively Jewish settlement) followed the same pattern of settlement familiar throughout historic Palestine:
  1. The confiscation of agricultural and grazing land in the areas surrounding Palestinian population centers.
  2. The freezing of growth in Palestinian villages by denying building and planning rights.
  3. The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes and businesses.
  4. Planned Jewish settlement aimed at breaking up the territorial continuity of Palestinian areas.
  5. The denial of access to basic services such as water (the theft of that water).
  6. Policies aimed at preventing Palestinian economic subsistence and forcing dependence on settlers.
Palestinian refugees crossing the Allenby Bridge following the Israeli occupation and war of 1967.
June 17, 1967. Note the Israeli officer to the left directing Palestinians out of their village Imwas.
Palestinian refugees near Allenby Bridge, 1967.
Through the “peace negotiations” of Oslo, the Geneva Accords, and the Road Map, Zionists have pursued a policy of stealing more land, striking genuine resistance to colonial settlement with crushing force, and engaging in a silent form of ethnic cleansing like what we are currently seeing in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Al-Naqab…etc.
Western diplomats pretend to be helpless as their governments aid Israel's crimes.
For decades, Israel has used culture and heritage as a weapon in its war against the Palestinians – but its latest move in Silwan is the most brazen yet: replacing living neighbourhoods with a biblical theme park.