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.
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 name Syria-Palaestina was given to the Roman province of Judaea in the early 2nd century AD.
The 1968 Palestinian National Covenant described Palestine as the "homeland of the Arab Palestinian people", with "the boundaries it had during the British Mandate". However, since the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the term State of Palestine refers only to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Yet, sources from throughout the Ottoman period are full of references to a place called Palestine (Filistin).
After Herodotus, the term `Palestine' came to be used for the entire region which was formerly known as Canaan.
While the State of Israel was established on 15 May 1948 and admitted to the United Nations, a Palestinian State was not established. The remaining territories of pre-1948 Palestine, the West Bank - including East Jerusalem- and Gaza Strip, were administered from 1948 till 1967 by Jordan and Egypt, respectively.
1917 – 1947: British mandate
Palestine was among former Ottoman territories placed under UK administration by the League of Nations in 1922.
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.
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.
First documented in the late Bronze Age, about 3200 years ago, the name Palestine (Greek: ; Arabic: Filastin), is the conventional name used between 450 BC and 1948 AD to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River and various adjoining lands.
Canaan (2000–1000 BCE)
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. The Muslim army conquered Jerusalem, held by the Byzantine Romans, in November, 636.
This country received the name of Palestine, from the Philistines, who dwelt on the sea coast: it was called Judea, from Judah: and is termed the Holy Land, being the country where Jesus Christ was born, preached his holy doctrines, confirmed them by miracles, and laid down his life for mankind.
Background. On 22 November 1974, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3236 recognised the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty in Palestine.
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.
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 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.
Palestine is a nation, which is held in high esteems in Islamic history and has great significance for Muslims. Some of the major reasons for Palestine being of significance to Muslims are: Allah has named it the Holy Land and the Blessed Land” in the Quran. It's mentioned in Surah Al- Ma'idah ( 5:21 ):
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.
The British controlled Palestine until Israel, in the years following the end of World War II, became an independent state in 1947.
The word Palestine derives from the Greek word, Philistia, which dates to Ancient Greek writers' descriptions of the region in the 12th century B.C. Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I to 1918, Palestine typically referred to the geographic region located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan ...
On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain's former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end.
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 Holy Land is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine.