In 1988 the Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers proclaimed the establishment of the State of Palestine.
The League of Nations issued a British mandate for Palestine—a document that gave Britain administrative control over the region, and included provisions for establishing a Jewish national homeland in Palestine—which went into effect in 1923.
The earliest human remains in the region were found in Ubeidiya, some 3 km south of the Sea of Galilee, in the Jordan Rift Valley. The remains are dated to the Pleistocene, c. 1.5 million years ago. These are traces of the earliest migration of Homo erectus out of Africa.
The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region.
In 1917, in order to win Jewish support for Britain's First World War effort, the British Balfour Declaration promised the establishment of a Jewish national home in Ottoman-controlled Palestine.
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.
In 1988 the Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers proclaimed the establishment of the State of Palestine. Read more here and here. The Security Council demanded Israel withdraw its forces “forthwith and unconditionally” from Lebanon up to its internationally recognized boundaries.
The 1948 war ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan. In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria.
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 region is called "the Land of Canaan" (Eretz Kna'an) in Numbers 34:2 and the borders are known in Jewish tradition as the "borders for those coming out of Egypt". These borders are again mentioned in Deuteronomy 1:6–8, 11:24 and Joshua 1:4.
Palestine has undergone many demographic and religious upheavals throughout history. During the 2nd millennium BCE, it was inhabited by the Canaanites, Semitic-speaking peoples who practiced the Canaanite religion. The Israelites emerged later as a separate ethnic and religious community in the region.
The word Palestine derives from Philistia, the name given by Greek writers to the land of the Philistines, who in the 12th century bce occupied a small pocket of land on the southern coast, between modern Tel Aviv–Yafo and Gaza.
The Assyrians called the same region "Palashtu/Palastu" or "Pilistu," beginning with Adad-nirari III in the Nimrud Slab in c. 800 BCE through to an Esarhaddon treaty more than a century later.
Palestine is bounded on the north, by Mount Libanus, or Lebanon, which separates it from that part of Syria, anciently called Phœnecia; on the east by Mount Hermon, which separates it from Arabia Deserta; on the south by Arabia Petrea; and on the west by the Mediterranean Sea, or Sea of Syria.
Archaeological work in the area suggests that the city was inhabited as far back as 4000BC. Its earliest known name may be Jebusite, the translation of a Canaanite town. Together with the later arriving Philistines, they are believed to be the earliest known ancestors to present day Palestinians.
Jerusalem is a city located in modern-day Israel and is considered by many to be one of the holiest places in the world. Jerusalem is a site of major significance for the three largest monotheistic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity, and both Israel and Palestine have claimed Jerusalem as a capital city.
The State of Palestine is a de jure sovereign state in the Middle East consisting of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The "State of Palestine" is officially recognized by the United Nations as a Non-Member Observer State, the status was granted on 29 November 2012.
1948–49 war: Israel and the Arab states
The termination of the British mandate over Palestine and the Israeli Declaration of Independence sparked a full-scale war (1948 Arab–Israeli War) which erupted after May 14, 1948.
Uniquely, Palestine is a holy land in three of the world's major religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Jerusalem is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock Mosque in Islam. The Ummayad Dynasty built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem in the 7th century CE.
Of the land that the Jews bought, 52.6% were bought from non-Palestinian landowners, 24.6% from Palestinian landowners, 13.4% from government, churches, and foreign companies, and only 9.4% from fellaheen (farmers).
Land sales by Palestinians to Israelis are considered treasonous by the former to the Palestinian national cause because they threaten the aspiration for an independent Palestinian state.
In 2022, East Jerusalem had a population of 595,000 inhabitants, of which 361,700 (61%) are Palestinian Arabs and 234,000 (39%) are Israeli Jewish settlers. The international community regards Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem illegal under international law.
Under the British Mandate (1920–1948), the whole region was known as 'Palestine' (Hebrew: פלשתינה [א״י], lit. 'Palestine [Eretz Israel]').
The town was originally named Ahuzat Bayit. On 21 May 1910, the name Tel Aviv was adopted.