The region of
Palestine is part of the wider region of the
Levant, which represents the
land bridge between
Africa and
Eurasia.<a href="
History of Palestine - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>1<span>]</span></a> The areas of the Levant traditionally serve as the "crossroads of
Western Asia, the
Eastern Mediterranean, and
Northeast Africa",<a href="
History of Palestine - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>2<span>]</span></a> and in
tectonic terms are located in the "northwest of the
Arabian Plate".<a href="
History of Palestine - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a> Palestine itself was among the earliest regions to see human habitation, agricultural communities and
civilization. Because of its location, it has historically been seen as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. In the
Bronze Age, the
Canaanites established
city-states influenced by surrounding civilizations, among them Egypt, which ruled the area in the Late Bronze Age. During the
Iron Age, two related
Israelite kingdoms,
Israel and
Judah, controlled much of Palestine, while the
Philistines occupied its southern coast. The
Assyrians conquered the region in the 8th century BCE, then the
Babylonians c. 601 BCE, followed by the Persian
Achaemenid Empirethat conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE.
Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire in the late 330s BCE, beginning
Hellenization.

Maps of
Ottoman Palestine showing the
Kazasubdivisions.
In the late 2nd-century BCE
Maccabean Revolt, the Jewish
Hasmonean Kingdomconquered most of Palestine; the kingdom subsequently became a vassal of
Rome, which annexed it in 63 BCE.
Roman Judea was troubled by
Jewish revolts in 66 CE, so Rome
destroyed Jerusalem and the
Second Jewish Temple in 70 CE. In the 4th century, as the
Roman Empire adopted Christianity, Palestine became a center for the religion, attracting pilgrims, monks and scholars. Following
Muslim conquest of the Levant in 636–641, ruling dynasties succeeded each other: the
Rashiduns;
Umayyads,
Abbasids; the semi-independent
Tulunids and
Ikhshidids;
Fatimids; and the
Seljuks. In 1099, the
First Crusaderesulted in
Crusaders establishing of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem, which was
reconquered by the
Ayyubid Sultanate in 1187. Following the
invasion of the
Mongol Empire in the late 1250s, the Egyptian
Mamluks reunified Palestine under its control, before the region was
conquered by the
Ottoman Empire in 1516, being ruled as
Ottoman Syria until the 20th century largely without dispute.
During
World War I, the British government issued the
Balfour Declaration, favoring the establishment of a
homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, and
captured it from the Ottomans. The
League of Nations gave Britain
mandatory power over Palestine in 1922. British rule and Arab efforts to prevent Jewish migration led to growing
violence between Arabs and Jews, causing the British to announce
its intention to terminate the Mandate in 1947. The
UN General Assemblyrecommended
partitioning Palestine into two states: Arab and Jewish. However, the situation deteriorated into a
civil war. The Arabs rejected the Partition Plan, the Jews
ostensibly accepted it, declaring the independence of the
State of Israel in May 1948 upon the
end of the British mandate. Nearby Arab countries invaded Palestine, Israel not only prevailed, but conquered more territory than envisioned by the Partition Plan. During the war, 700,000, or about 80% of all Palestinians
fled or were driven out of territory Israel conquered and were not allowed to return, an event known as the
Nakba (Arabic for 'catastrophe') to Palestinians. Starting in the late 1940s and continuing for decades,
about 850,000 Jews from the Arab worldimmigrated ("made
Aliyah") to Israel.
After the war, only two parts of Palestine remained in Arab control: the
West Bank and
East Jerusalem were
annexed by Jordan, and the
Gaza Strip was
occupied by Egypt, which were conquered by Israel during the
Six-Day War in 1967. Despite international objections, Israel started to establish
settlements in these occupied territories.<a href="
History of Palestine - Wikipedia"><span>[</span>4<span>]</span></a> Meanwhile, the Palestinian national movement gained international recognition, thanks to the
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), under
Yasser Arafat. In 1993, the
Oslo Peace Accordsbetween Israel and the PLO established the
Palestinian Authority (PA), an interim body to run Gaza and the West Bank (but not East Jerusalem), pending a permanent solution. Further peace developments were not ratified and/or implemented, and relations between Israel and Palestinians has been marked by conflict, especially with Islamist
Hamas, which rejects the PA. In 2007, Hamas
won control of Gaza from the PA, now limited to the West Bank. In 2012, the
State of Palestine (the name used by the PA) became a non-member observer state in the
UN, allowing it to take part in General Assembly debates and improving its chances of joining other UN agencies.