During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
Around 722 B.C., the Assyrians invaded and destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel.
They experienced two exiles: after the destruction of the first temple, in the 6th century BC, and of the second temple, in 70 AD.
Roman general Titus stormed Jerusalem in ad 70 in a bloody battle that destroyed much of the city.
On Tisha B'Av, 25 August 587 BCE or 18 July 586 BCE, the Babylonians took Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple and burned down the city. The small settlements surrounding the city, and those close to the western border of the kingdom, were destroyed as well.
In the immediate aftermath of the Second Israel–Lebanon War, most ob- servers have concluded that Israel lost its war against Hezbollah.
The Israelites camped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines at Aphek. The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of them on the battlefield.
Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, 10 of the original 12 Hebrew tribes, which, under the leadership of Joshua, took possession of Canaan, the Promised Land, after the death of Moses.
"Jerusalem is known for two major destructions in its early history. One was in 586 B.C.E., when the Babylonians destroyed the city. The other was in the year 70 C.E., when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem," Uziel says.
It brought about the destruction of the Second Temple in the month of Av 70 CE and the total destruction of the upper city of Jerusalem which burned for over a month. Thousands of Jews were killed in the Revolt and thousands more were taken into Roman captivity.
Crucified Jewish rebels
Pagan Rome's occupation of that area lasted for roughly 400 years followed by Christian Rome's and then Constantinople's occupation for 300 years. The first 100 years from Pompey's conquest in 63 BCE to the end of Pontius Pilate's governorship in 36 CE were terrible.
During the Crisis of the Third Century, economic disruption and high taxation due to civil wars in the Roman Empire caused many Jews to migrate from the Land of Israel to Babylon under the more tolerant Persian Sassanid Empire, where an autonomous Jewish community existed in the area of Babylon.
Jerusalem remained under Muslim rule until it was captured by Crusaders in 1099 during the First Crusade.
701 B.C. — Assyrian ruler Sennacherib laid siege to Jerusalem. 586 B.C. — Babylonian troops occupied the city, destroying the temple and exiling many Jews. 539 B.C. — Persian King Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonian empire, including Jerusalem.
The Bible states that the kings of Israel sinned greatly. But Israel fell because it was just too attractive to the Assyrians. At first the Assyrians ignored Samaria, then the capital of Israel, thinking it was too isolated. But eventually they attacked it and conquered the city, along with rest of the kingdom.
ISRAEL'S GREATEST SIN: IDOLATRY.
The Six-Day War began with a preemptive Israeli air assault in Egypt and Syria. An Israeli ground offensive was also launched in the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. These territories were all captured by Israel, though the Sinai Peninsula was later returned to Egypt.
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.
These are Algeria, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Eight of these also do not accept passports of other countries whose holder has an Israeli visa endorsed in it.
In A.D. 301-304, the Roman Emperor Diocletian burned thousands of copies of the Bible, commanded that all Bibles be destroyed and decreed that any home with a Bible in it should be burned. In fact, he even built a monument over what he thought was the last surviving Bible.
The Temple suffered at the hands of Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylonia, who removed the Temple treasures in 604 bce and 597 bce and totally destroyed the building in 587/586.
The Ottoman Empire
After World War I, Great Britain took over Jerusalem, which was part of Palestine at the time. The British controlled the city and surrounding region until Israel became an independent state in 1948. Jerusalem was divided during the first 20 years of Israel's existence.