Early History The region of Palestine is among the earliest sites of human habitation in the world. Archaeological evidence suggests a hunter-gatherer community living a nomadic existence in the region pre-10,000 BCE. In the Early Bronze Age, permanent settlements were founded and agricultural communities developed.
On 15 November 1988 in Algiers, then-Chairman of the PLO Yasser Arafat proclaimed the establishment of the State of Palestine. A year after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the PNA was formed to govern (in varying degrees) areas A and B in the West Bank, comprising 165 enclaves, and the Gaza Strip.
The term "Palestine" first appeared in the 5th century BCE when the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê" between Phoenicia and Egypt in The Histories.
Palestine's Early Roots
From about 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the region. When World War I ended in 1918, the British took control of Palestine.
Mandatory Palestine is how the territory that today is made up of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was referred to when it was under the control of British authorities in the 1920s. .
The oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are the Skhul and Qafzeh hominids, who lived in northern Israel 120,000 years ago. Around 10th millennium BCE, the Natufian culture existed in the area.
The declaration of a State of Palestine (Arabic: دولة فلسطين) took place in Algiers on November 15, 1988, by the Palestinian National Council, the legislative body of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
In 1920, after the Allies conquered the Levant during World War I, the territory was divided between Britain and France under the mandate system, and the British-administered area which included modern day Israel was named Mandatory Palestine.
Definition. Palestine in the ancient world was part of the region known as Canaan where the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were located.
Jews originated as an ethnic and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, in a part of the Levant known as the Land of Israel.
Jews have lived on the land of Israel continuously for almost 4,000 years. The land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people. Approximately 4,000 years ago, Abraham moved to the land of Israel where he lived with his family, raised his children and purchased land to bury his wife and himself.
RAMALLAH, Palestine
According to the bureau, Jews controlled only 6.2% of land in Palestine under British mandate (1920-1948). “Israel now controls around 27,000 cubic meters of land, accounting for 85% of historical Palestine,” the PCBS said.
Islam was first brought to the region of Palestine during the Early Muslim conquests of the 7th century, when the Rashidun Caliphate under the leadership of ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb conquered the Shaam region from the Byzantine Empire.
In 722 BCE, the Assyrians, under Sargon II, successor to Shalmaneser V, conquered the Kingdom of Israel, and many Israelites were deported to Mesopotamia. The Jewish proper diaspora began with the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE.
However, the situation in Palestine had deteriorated into a civil war between Arabs and Jews. The Arabs rejected the Partition Plan, the Jews ostensibly accepted it, declaring the independence of the State of Israel in May 1948 upon the termination of the British mandate.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the birth of major nationalist movements among the Jews and among the Arabs, both geared towards attaining sovereignty for their people in the Middle East.
The Philistines, an ancient people described not so positively in scripture, went extinct centuries ago, but some of their DNA has survived.
As for the modern State of Israel, its beginnings lie in the 19th century, when the Jewish nationalist movement Zionism took shape. Members of the movement usually referred to the hoped-for nation to be formed in Palestine as “the Jewish State,” as it was called by Theodor Herzl (in German) - “Der Judenstaat.”
In the Hellenistic period, these names were carried over into Greek, appearing in the Histories of Herodotus in the more recognizable form of "Palaistine". The Roman Empire initially used other terms for the region, such as Judaea, but renamed the region Syria Palaestina after the Bar Kokhba revolt.
From 1517 to 1917, what is today Israel, along with much of the Middle East, was ruled by the Ottoman Empire.
Indigenous Peoples in Israel
Israel's Arab Bedouin citizens are Indigenous to the Negev (Naqab, in Arabic) desert, where they have lived for centuries as a semi-nomadic people, long before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
The city of Jerusalem was first built on the hill south of temple mount by the ancient Canaanites in the 18th century b.c.e. David son of Jesse, King of Israel, conquered the small Jebusite (Canaanite) city and made it his capital, which he called - the City of David (2nd Samuel 5).
Before David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, announced Israel's Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948, 600,000 Jews lived in the land. According to estimates, approximately one-fifth – or up to 120,000 Jews were living in Jerusalem – the newly-declared capital of the nascent state.
Ethnic and religious minorities have full voting rights in Israel and are entitled to government benefits under various laws.