183-501: Situated between three continents, the region of Palestine has a tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The region was among the earliest to see human habitation, agricultural communities and civilization . In the Bronze Age , the Canaanites established city-states influenced by surrounding civilizations, among them Egypt, which ruled
366-761: 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
549-747: A homeland for the Jewish people . The modern definition of the region follows the boundaries of that entity, which were fixed in the North and East in 1920–23 by the British Mandate for Palestine (including the Transjordan memorandum ) and the Paulet–Newcombe Agreement , and on the South by following the 1906 Turco-Egyptian boundary agreement. The region of Palestine is the eponym for
732-706: A "district of Syria, called Palaistínē " ( Ancient Greek : Συρίη ἡ Παλαιστίνη καλεομένη ) in The Histories , which included the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley . Approximately a century later, Aristotle used a similar definition for the region in Meteorology , in which he included the Dead Sea . Later Greek writers such as Polemon and Pausanias also used the term to refer to
915-748: 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 Crusaders established the Kingdom of Jerusalem , which the Ayyubid Sultanate reconquered in 1187. Following
1098-581: A century, beginning with the Turkish freeman Ahmad ibn Tulun , for whom both Jews and Christians prayed when he lay dying and ending with the Ikhshidid rulers. Reverence for Jerusalem increased during this period, with many of the Egyptian rulers choosing to be buried there. However, the later period became characterized by persecution of Christians as the threat from Byzantium grew. The Fatimids , with
1281-696: A consequence they lost their frankincense trade privileges. The trade privileges were taken over by the Nabataeans, an Arab tribe whose capital was in Petra in Transjordan. They established themselves in the Negev where they built a flourishing civilization. Despite the devastating Greco-Persian Wars , Greek cultural influences rose steadily. Greek coins began to circulate in the late 6th and early 5th centuries. Greek traders established trading posts along
1464-506: A long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The region has been controlled by numerous peoples, including ancient Egyptians , Canaanites , Israelites , Assyrians , Babylonians , Achaemenids , ancient Greeks , Romans , Parthians , Sasanians , Byzantines , the Arab Rashidun , Umayyad , Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates , Crusaders , Ayyubids , Mamluks , Mongols , Ottomans ,
1647-532: A major regional power, partly fueled by his monopolization of the cotton and olive oil trade from Palestine to Europe. Acre's regional dominance was further elevated under Zahir's successor Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar at the expense of Damascus . In 1830, on the eve of Muhammad Ali 's invasion, the Porte transferred control of the sanjaks of Jerusalem and Nablus to Abdullah Pasha , the governor of Acre. According to Silverburg, in regional and cultural terms this move
1830-411: A month. In the summer of 1948, Israel began implementing anti-repatriation policies to prevent the return of Palestinians to their homes . A Transfer Committee coordinated and supervised efforts to prevent Palestinian return, including the destruction of villages, resettlement of Arab villages with Jewish immigrants, confiscation of land, and the dissemination of propaganda discouraging return. During
2013-701: A name for the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Under Arab rule, Filastin (or Jund Filastin ) was used administratively to refer to what was under the Byzantines Palaestina Secunda (comprising Judaea and Samaria ), while Palaestina Prima (comprising the Galilee region) was renamed Urdunn ("Jordan" or Jund al-Urdunn ). Nineteenth-century sources refer to Palestine as extending from
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#17327662732672196-517: A narrative of revolution and renewal. Interest in the Nakba by organizations representing refugees in Lebanon surged in the 1990s due to the perception that the refugees' right of return might be negotiated away in exchange for Palestinian statehood, and the desire was to send a clear message to the international community that this right was non-negotiable. The Palestinian national narrative regards
2379-603: A number of walls, a religious shrine, and a 23-foot (7.0 m) tower with an internal staircase Jericho is believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world , with evidence of settlement dating back to 9000 BCE, providing important information about early human habitation in the Near East . Along the Jericho– Dead Sea – Bir es-Saba – Gaza – Sinai route, a culture originating in Syria , marked by
2562-571: A predominantly Berber army, conquered the region in 970, a date that marks the beginning of a period of unceasing warfare between numerous enemies, which destroyed Palestine, and in particular, devastating its Jewish population. Between 1071 and 1073, Palestine was captured by the Great Seljuq Empire , only to be recaptured by the Fatimids in 1098. The Fatimids again lost the region to the Crusaders in 1099 . The Crusaders set up
2745-461: A quarter of a million of the Arab population have been compelled to leave their homes and emigrate to neighbouring Arab countries." In the period after the war, a large number of Palestinians attempted to return to their homes ; between 2,700 and 5,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel during this period, the vast majority being unarmed and intending to return for economic or social reasons. The Nakba
2928-609: A revolt against the latter led to its destruction in 586 BCE. The region became part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from c. 740 BCE, which was itself replaced by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in c. 627 BCE. In 587/6 BCE, Jerusalem was besieged and destroyed by the second Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II , who subsequently exiled the Judeans to Babylon . The Kingdom of Judah
3111-573: A series of separate states along lines of their own choosing. The word was used again one year later by the Palestinian poet Burhan al-Deen al-Abushi . Zureiq's students subsequently founded the Arab Nationalist Movement in 1952, one of the first post-Nakba Palestinian political movements. In a six-volume encyclopedia Al-Nakba: Nakbat Bayt al-Maqdis Wal-Firdaws al-Mafqud ( The Catastrophe: The Catastrophe of Jerusalem and
3294-659: A term that had previously only referred to the smaller region of the Judaean Mountains . During the same period, the Edomites were converted to Judaism. Between 73 and 63 BCE, the Roman Republic extended its influence into the region in the Third Mithridatic War . Pompey conquered Judea in 63 BCE, splitting the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts. In around 40 BCE,
3477-584: A tyrant and involved in many political and familial intrigues. Palestine (region) The region of Palestine , also known as historic Palestine , is a geographical area in West Asia . It includes modern-day Israel and the State of Palestine , as well as parts of northwestern Jordan in some definitions. Other names for the region include Canaan , the Promised Land , the Land of Israel , or
3660-578: A vassal of Israel, rebelled against it, destroying the main Israelite settlements in the Transjordan. In the 830s BCE, king Hazael of Aram Damascus conquered the fertile and strategically important northern parts of Israel which devastated the kingdom. He also destroyed the Philistine city of Gath . During the late 9th century BCE, Israel under King Jehu became a vassal to Assyria and was forced to pay tribute. King Tiglath Pileser III of Assyria
3843-605: Is also sometimes used in a limited sense to refer to the parts of the Palestinian territories currently under the administrative control of the Palestinian National Authority , a quasi-governmental entity which governs parts of the State of Palestine under the terms of the Oslo Accords . Estimating the population of Palestine in antiquity relies on two methods – censuses and writings made at
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#17327662732674026-874: Is debated. Between 259 and 272, the region fell under the rule of Odaenathus as King of the Palmyrene Empire . Following the victory of Christian emperor Constantine in the Civil wars of the Tetrarchy , the Christianization of the Roman Empire began, and in 326, Constantine's mother Saint Helena visited Jerusalem and began the construction of churches and shrines. Palestine became a center of Christianity, attracting numerous monks and religious scholars. The Samaritan Revolts during this period caused their near extinction. In 614 CE, Palestine
4209-631: Is described as ethnic cleansing by many scholars, including Palestinian scholars such as Saleh Abd al-Jawad , Beshara Doumani , Rashid Khalidi , Adel Manna , Nur Masalha , Nadim Rouhana , Ahmad H. Sa'di , and Areej Sabbagh-Khoury , Israeli scholars such as Alon Confino , Amos Goldberg , Baruch Kimmerling , Ronit Lentin , Ilan Pappé , and Yehouda Shenhav , and foreign scholars such as Abigail Bakan , Elias Khoury , Mark Levene , Derek Penslar , and Patrick Wolfe , among other scholars. Other scholars, such as Yoav Gelber , Benny Morris , and Seth J. Frantzman, disagree that
4392-803: Is estimated to have occurred from 28 to 30 CE, although the historicity of Jesus is disputed by a minority of scholars. In the first and second centuries CE, the province of Judea became the site of two large-scale Jewish revolts against Rome . During the First Jewish-Roman War , which lasted from 66 to 73 CE, the Romans razed Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple . In Masada , Jewish zealots preferred to commit suicide than endure Roman captivity. In 132 CE, another Jewish rebellion erupted. The Bar Kokhba revolt took three years to put down, incurred massive costs on both
4575-579: Is found in five inscriptions referring to a neighboring people or land starting from c. 1150 BCE during the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt . The first known mention is at the temple at Medinet Habu which refers to the Peleset among those who fought with Egypt in Ramesses III 's reign, and the last known is 300 years later on Padiiset's Statue . Seven known Assyrian inscriptions refer to
4758-782: The 1948 Palestine war are not disputed. About 750,000 Palestinians—over 80% of the population in what would become the State of Israel — were expelled or fled from their homes and became refugees . Eleven Arab urban neighborhoods and over 500 villages were destroyed or depopulated. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in dozens of massacres . About a dozen rapes of Palestinians by regular and irregular Israeli military forces have been documented, and more are suspected. Israelis used psychological warfare tactics to frighten Palestinians into flight, including targeted violence, whispering campaigns , radio broadcasts, and loudspeaker vans . Looting by Israeli soldiers and civilians of Palestinian homes, business, farms, artwork, books, and archives
4941-603: The 1982 Lebanon War , including between 800 and 3,500 killed in the Sabra and Shatila massacre . The First Intifada began in 1987 and lasted until the 1993 Oslo Accords . The Second Intifada began in 2000. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza and blockaded it . In the West Bank and East Jerusalem , Israel has built the Israeli West Bank barrier and created Palestinian enclaves . In 2011, Israel passed
5124-680: The Amarna Letters . These refer to local chieftains, such as Biridiya of Megiddo , Lib'ayu of Shechem and Abdi-Heba in Jerusalem . Abdi-Heba is a Hurrian name, and enough Hurrians lived in Canaan at that time to warrant contemporary Egyptian texts naming the locals as Ḫurru . In the first year of his reign, the pharaoh Seti I (c. 1294–1290 BCE) waged a campaign to resubordinate Canaan to Egyptian rule, thrusting north as far as Beit She'an , and installing local vassals to administer
5307-735: The Assassination of Ali , Muawiyah I became the Caliph of the Islamic world after being crowned in Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock , completed in 691, was the world's first great work of Islamic architecture. The majority of the population was Christian and was to remain so until the conquest of Saladin in 1187. The Muslim conquest apparently had little impact on social and administrative continuities for several decades. The word 'Arab' at
5490-473: The British , and modern Israelis and Palestinians . The region was among the earliest in the world to see human habitation, agricultural communities and civilization . During the Bronze Age , independent Canaanite city-states were established, and were influenced by the surrounding civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia , Phoenicia , Minoan Crete, and Syria. Between 1550 and 1400 BCE,
5673-750: The Caucasus mixed with the local population to produce the Canaanite culture that existed during the Bronze Age. During 1550–1400 BCE, the Canaanite city-states became vassals to the New Kingdom of Egypt , which expanded into the Levant under Ahmose I and Thutmose I . Political, commercial and military events towards the end of this period (1450–1350 BCE) were recorded by ambassadors and Canaanite proxy rulers for Egypt in 379 cuneiform tablets known as
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5856-574: The Dead Sea and River Jordan ) has at times formed a political and administrative frontier, even within empires that have controlled both territories. At other times, such as during certain periods during the Hasmonean and Crusader states for example, as well as during the biblical period , territories on both sides of the river formed part of the same administrative unit. During the Arab Caliphate period, parts of southern Lebanon and
6039-521: The Diadochi , marking the beginning of Macedonian rule over various territories, including Coele-Syria . The region came under Ptolemaic rule beginning when Ptolemy I Soter took control of Egypt in 322 BCE and Yehud Medinata in 320 BCE due to its strategic significance. This period saw conflicts as former generals vied for control, leading to ongoing power struggles and territorial exchanges. Ptolemaic rule brought stability and economic prosperity to
6222-552: The Holy Land . The earliest written record referring to Palestine as a geographical region is in the Histories of Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, which calls the area Palaistine , referring to the territory previously held by Philistia , a state that existed in that area from the 12th to the 7th century BCE. The Roman Empire conquered the region and in 6 CE established the province known as Judaea , but then in 132 CE in
6405-738: The Iron Age , the Israelites established two related kingdoms, Israel and Judah . The Kingdom of Israel emerged as an important local power by the 10th century BCE before falling to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE. Israel's southern neighbor, the Kingdom of Judah , emerged in the 8th or 9th century BCE and later became a client state of first the Neo-Assyrian and then the Neo-Babylonian Empire before
6588-440: The Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948, a fact which was named as a casus belli for the entry of the Arab League into the country, sparking the 1948 Arab–Israeli War . Clause 10.(b) of the cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the UN Secretary-General of 15 May 1948 justifying the intervention by the Arab States, the Secretary-General of the League alleged that "approximately over
6771-536: The Jewish Political Studies Review published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs , outlines the evolution of the Nakba narrative through three stages. Initially, it depicted Palestinians as victims displaced by Israel's creation to make way for Jewish immigrants. The next phase recast the Six-Day War as Israel's colonization of Palestinian lands, aligning the Palestinian cause with anti-colonial sentiments. The final stage leverages Holocaust memories, accusing Israel of apartheid , resonating with Western guilt over
6954-498: 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 site yielded hand axes of the Acheulean type. Excavations in Skhul Cave revealed the first evidence of the late Epipalaeolithic Natufian culture, characterized by the presence of abundant microliths , human burials and ground stone tools. This also represents one area where Neanderthals – present in
7137-421: The Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291). Their control of Jerusalem and most of Palestine lasted almost a century until their defeat by Saladin 's forces in 1187, after which most of Palestine was controlled by the Ayyubids , except for the years 1229–1244 when Jerusalem and other areas were retaken by the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem , by then ruled from Acre (1191–1291), but, despite seven further crusades,
7320-441: The Mongol raids into Palestine under Nestorian Christian general Kitbuqa , and reaching an apex at the pivotal Battle of Ain Jalut , where they were pushed back by the Mamluks. In 1486, hostilities broke out between the Mamluks and the Ottoman Empire in a battle for control over western Asia, and the Ottomans conquered Palestine in 1516. Between the mid-16th and 17th centuries, a close-knit alliance of three local dynasties,
7503-501: The Muslim conquest , place names that were in use by the Byzantine administration generally continued to be used in Arabic. The use of the name "Palestine" became common in Early Modern English , was used in English and Arabic during the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem and was revived as an official place name with the British Mandate for Palestine . Some other terms that have been used to refer to all or part of this land include Canaan , Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael or Ha'aretz),
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7686-537: The Nakba ("Catastrophe") to Palestinians. Starting in the late 1940s and continuing for decades, about 850,000 Jews from the Arab world immigrated ("made Aliyah ") to Israel. After the war, only two parts of Palestine remained in Arab control: the West Bank (and East-Jerusalem ), annexed by Jordan , and the Gaza Strip 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. Meanwhile,
7869-403: The Nakba Law , which denies government funding to institutions that commemorate the Nakba. The 2023 Israel-Hamas War has caused the highest Palestinian casualties since the 1948 war, and has raised fears among Palestinians that history will repeat itself. These fears were exacerbated when Israeli Agricultural Minister Avi Dichter said that the war would end with "Gaza Nakba 2023." Dichter
8052-407: The Neo-Babylonian Empire , the Achaemenid Empire , the Macedonian Empire , and the Seleucid Empire . The brief Hasmonean dynasty ended with its gradual incorporation into the Roman Empire, and later the Byzantine Empire, during which Palestine became a center of Christianity. In the 7th century, Palestine was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate , ending Byzantine rule in the region; Rashidun rule
8235-413: The Palestinian diaspora ; at the same time Israel was created as a Jewish homeland, the Palestinians were turned into a "refugee nation" with a "wandering identity". Today a majority of the 13.7 million Palestinians live in the diaspora, i.e. they live outside of the historical area of Mandatory Palestine , primarily in other countries of the Arab world . Of the 6.2 million people registered by
8418-442: The Palestinian people and the culture of Palestine , both of which are defined as relating to the whole historical region, usually defined as the localities within the border of Mandatory Palestine . 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 ,
8601-497: The Parthians conquered Palestine, deposed the Roman ally Hyrcanus II , and installed a puppet ruler of the Hasmonean line known as Antigonus II . By 37 BCE, the Parthians withdrew from Palestine. Palestine is generally considered the "Cradle of Christianity ". Christianity, a religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth , arose as a messianic sect from within Second Temple Judaism . The three-year Ministry of Jesus , culminating in his crucifixion ,
8784-408: The Promised Land , the region of Syria , the Holy Land , Iudaea Province , Judea , Coele-Syria , "Israel HaShlema", Kingdom of Israel , Kingdom of Jerusalem , Zion , Retenu (Ancient Egyptian), Southern Syria , Southern Levant and Syria Palaestina . Situated at a strategic location between Egypt , Syria and Arabia , and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity , the region has
8967-423: The Ridwans of Gaza , the Turabays of al-Lajjun and the Farrukhs of Nablus , governed Palestine on behalf of the Porte (imperial Ottoman government). In the 18th century, the Zaydani clan under the leadership of Zahir al-Umar ruled large parts of Palestine autonomously until the Ottomans were able to defeat them in their Galilee strongholds in 1775–76. Zahir had turned the port city of Acre into
9150-437: The Second Intifada (also called al-Aqsa Intifada) began, and Israel built a separation barrier . In the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza , Israel withdrew all settlers and military presence from the Gaza Strip, but maintained military control of numerous aspects of the territory including its borders, air space and coast. Israel's ongoing military occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem continues to be
9333-440: The Six-Day War in June 1967, Israel captured the rest of Mandate Palestine from Jordan and Egypt, and began a policy of establishing Jewish settlements in those territories . From 1987 to 1993, the First Palestinian Intifada against Israel took place, which included the Declaration of the State of Palestine in 1988 and ended with the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords and the creation of the Palestinian National Authority . In 2000,
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#17327662732679516-475: The Six-Day War , another series of Palestinian exodus occurred; this came to be known as the Naksa ( lit. ' Setback ' ), and also has its own day , 5 June. The Nakba has greatly influenced Palestinian culture and is a foundational symbol of the current Palestinian national identity , together with the political cartoon character Handala , the Palestinian keffiyeh , and the Palestinian 1948 keys . Many books, songs, and poems have been written about
9699-408: The Torah , with undefined boundaries, and almost 200 of the remaining references are in the Book of Judges and the Books of Samuel . The term is rarely used in the Septuagint , which used a transliteration Land of Phylistieim ( Γῆ τῶν Φυλιστιείμ ), different from the contemporary Greek place name Palaistínē ( Παλαιστίνη ). It is also theorized to be the portmanteau of the Greek word for
9882-408: The United Nations General Assembly adopted in November 1947 a Resolution 181(II) recommending partition into an Arab state, a Jewish state and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. A civil war began immediately after the Resolution's adoption. The State of Israel was declared in May 1948. In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , Israel captured and incorporated a further 26% of
10065-423: The West Bank and the Gaza Strip respectively. The 1967 Six Day War saw Israel's occupation of both territories , which has been among the core issues of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict . Modern archaeology has identified 12 ancient inscriptions from Egyptian and Assyrian records recording likely cognates of Hebrew Pelesheth . The term "Peleset" ( transliterated from hieroglyphs as P-r-s-t )
10248-401: The deterritorialization of the Palestinians has created a uniting factor and focal point in the desire to return to their lost homeland. The most important long-term implications of the Nakba for the Palestinian people were the loss of their homeland, the fragmentation and marginalization of their national community, and their transformation into a stateless people . Since the late 1990s,
10431-748: The right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants . During the foundational events of the Nakba in 1948, approximately half of Palestine's predominantly Arab population, or around 750,000 people, were expelled from their homes or made to flee through various violent means , at first by Zionist paramilitaries, and after the establishment of the State of Israel, by its military . Dozens of massacres targeted Palestinian Arabs and over 500 Arab-majority towns, villages, and urban neighborhoods were depopulated , with many of these being either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jews and given new Hebrew names . Israel employed biological warfare against Palestinians by poisoning village wells . By
10614-463: The 12th century BCE, the Philistines , who had immigrated from the Aegean region , settled in the southern coast of Palestine. Traces of Philistines appeared at about the same time as the Israelites. The Philistines are credited with introducing iron weapons, chariots, and new ways of fermenting wine to the local population. Over time, the Philistines integrated with the local population and they, like other people in Palestine, were engulfed by first
10797-401: The 1950s and 1960s, terms they used to describe the events of 1948 included al-'ightiṣāb ("the rape"), or were more euphemistic, such as al-'aḥdāth ("the events"), al-hijra ("the exodus"), and lammā sharnā wa-tla'nā ("when we blackened our faces and left"). Nakba narratives were avoided by the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon in the 1970s, in favor of
10980-405: The 5th century. Another people in Palestine was the Edomites . Originally, their kingdom occupied the southern area of modern-day Jordan but later they were pushed westward by nomadic tribes coming from the east, among them the Nabataeans , and therefore migrated into southern parts of Judea. This migration had already begun a generation or two before the Babylonian conquest of Judah, but as Judah
11163-412: The 6th century, Aramaic became the common language in the north, in Galilee and Samaria , replacing Hebrew as the spoken language in Palestine, and it became the region's lingua franca . Hebrew remained in use in Judah; however the returning exiles brought back Aramaic influence, and Aramaic was used for communicating with other ethnic groups during the Persian period. Hebrew remained as a language for
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#173276627326711346-406: The Arabian tribes inhabited the southern deserts. In contrast to his predecessors, who controlled conquered populations using mass-deportations, Cyrus issued a proclamation granting subjugated nations religious freedom. The Persians resettled exiles in their homelands and let them rebuilt their temples. According to scholars, this policy helped them to present themselves as liberators, gaining them
11529-495: The Assyrian empire and later the Babylonian empire. In the 6th century, they disappeared from written history. Two related Israelite kingdoms, Israel and Judah , emerged during the 10th and 9th centuries BCE: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Israel was the more prosperous of the kingdoms and developed into a regional power. By the 8th century BCE, the Israelite population had grown to some 160,000 individuals over 500 settlements. Israel and Judah continually clashed with
11712-414: The Babylonian threat. The intervention was unsuccessful; Babylon took Assyria's Nineveh in 612 BCE and two years later Harran . In 609 the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II again marched north with his army. For some reason, he executed the Judahite king Josiah at the Egyptian base Megiddo and a few months later he installed Jehoiakim as the king of Judah. At the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BCE,
11895-495: The Babylonians routed the Egyptian forces, causing them to flee back to the Nile . The next year, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Philistine cities Ashdod , Ekron , Ashkelon , and Gaza . By 601 BCE, all the former states in the Levant had become Babylonian colonies. The Babylonians continued the practices of their predecessors the Assyrians and deported populations that resisted its military might. Many of them were settled in Babylon and were used to rebuild
12078-454: The Canaanite cities became vassals to the Egyptian New Kingdom who held power until the 1178 BCE Battle of Djahy (Canaan) during the wider Bronze Age collapse . The Israelites emerged from a dramatic social transformation that took place in the people of the central hill country of Canaan around 1200 BCE, with no signs of violent invasion or even of peaceful infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group from elsewhere. During
12261-426: The Canaanite urban civilization were destroyed around 2500 BCE, though there is no consensus as to why (for one theory, see 4.2-kiloyear event ). Incursions by nomads from the east of the Jordan River who settled in the hills followed soon thereafter, as well as cultural influence from the ancient Syrian city of Ebla . That period known as the Intermediate Bronze Age (2500–2000 BCE), was defined recently out of
12444-418: The Disaster ). Zureiq wrote that "the tragic aspect of the Nakba is related to the fact that it is not a regular misfortune or a temporal evil, but a Disaster in the very essence of the word, one of the most difficult that Arabs have ever known over their long history." Prior to 1948, the "Year of the Catastrophe" among Arabs referred to 1920, when European colonial powers partitioned the Ottoman Empire into
12627-409: The Franks were no longer a significant power in the region. The Fourth Crusade , which did not reach Palestine, led directly to the decline of the Byzantine Empire, dramatically reducing Christian influence throughout the region. The Mamluk Sultanate was created in Egypt as an indirect result of the Seventh Crusade . The Mongol Empire reached Palestine for the first time in 1260, beginning with
12810-446: The Hasmonean pretenders, as High Priest but denied him the title of king. Most of the territory the Hasmoneans had conquered were awarded to other kingdoms, and Judea now only included Judea proper, Samaria (except for the city of Samaria which was renamed Sebaste ), southern Galilee, and eastern Idumaea. In 57 BCE, the Romans and Jewish loyalists stamped out an uprising organized by Hyrcanus' enemies. Hoping to quell further unrest,
12993-429: The Holocaust , in February 1947, the British declared they would end the Mandate and submit the future of Palestine to the newly created United Nations for resolution. The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created, and in September, submitted a report to the UN General Assembly recommending partition. Palestinians and most of the Arab League were opposed to the partition. Zionists accepted
13176-550: The Holocaust. He argues these evolving interpretations omit complex historical factors involving failed attempts to eliminate Israel, contested territorial claims, and Jewish refugee displacement from Arab nations . The Israeli national narrative rejects the Palestinian characterization of 1948 as the Nakba (catastrophe), instead viewing it as the War of Independence that established Israel's statehood and sovereignty . It portrays
13359-765: The Israeli portion of the partitioned land, while British troops were still present. After the end of the Mandate, Israel seized more land allocated to the Palestinians by the UN partition plan, and expulsions, massacres, and the destruction of villages in rural areas increased, including the Tantura massacre (22-23 May). The first truce between Israel and the Arab League nations was signed in early June and lasted about
13542-780: The Israelis launched Plan Dalet , a large-scale offensive to capture land and empty it of Palestinian Arabs. During the offensive, Israel captured and cleared land that was allocated to the Palestinians by the UN partition resolution. Over 200 villages were destroyed during this period. Massacres and expulsions continued, including at Deir Yassin (9 April 1948). Arab urban neighborhoods in Tiberias (18 April), Haifa (23 April), West Jerusalem (24 April), Acre (6-18 May), Safed (10 May), and Jaffa (13 May) were depopulated. Israel began engaging in biological warfare in April, poisoning
13725-647: The Jordan valley in 1918 and a campaign by the Entente into northern Palestine led to victory at Megiddo in September . The British were formally awarded the mandate to govern the region in 1922. The Arab Palestinians rioted in 1920 , 1921 , 1929 , and revolted in 1936 . In 1947, following World War II and The Holocaust , the British Government announced its desire to terminate the Mandate, and
13908-472: The Lost Paradise ) published between 1958 and 1960, Aref al-Aref wrote: "How can I call it but Nakba ["catastrophe"]? When we the Arab people generally and the Palestinians particularly, faced such a disaster (Nakba) that we never faced like it along the centuries, our homeland was sealed, we [were] expelled from our country, and we lost many of our beloved sons." Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari also used
14091-447: The Mandate formally ended, the last British troops left, and Israel declared independence . By that time, Palestinian society was destroyed and over 300,000 Palestinians had been expelled or fled. On 15 May, Arab League armies entered the territory of former Mandatory Palestine, beginning the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , the second half of the 1948 Palestine war. Most of the violence up to that point occurred in and around urban centers, in
14274-531: The Mandate territory, Jordan captured the regions of Judea and Samaria , renaming it the " West Bank ", while the Gaza Strip was captured by Egypt . Following the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight , also known as al-Nakba , the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes were not allowed to return following the Lausanne Conference of 1949 . In the course of
14457-558: The Muslim Arabs not to settle in the villages, "for he who abides in villages it is as if he abides in graves". The Umayyads , who had spurred a strong economic resurgence in the area, were replaced by the Abbasids in 750. Ramla became the administrative centre for the following centuries, while Tiberias became a thriving centre of Muslim scholarship. From 878, Palestine was ruled from Egypt by semi-autonomous rulers for almost
14640-448: The Nakba constitutes an ethnic cleansing. Morris in 2016 rejected the description of "ethnic cleansing" for 1948, while also stating that the label of "partial ethnic cleansing" for 1948 was debatable; in 2004 Morris was responding to the claim of "ethnic cleansing" occurring in 1948 by stating that, given the alternative was "genocide - the annihilation of your people," there were "circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing ... It
14823-534: The Nakba. The roots of the Nakba are traced to the arrival of Zionists and their purchase of land in Ottoman Palestine in the late 19th century. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. By the time the British announced their official support for Zionism in the 1917 Balfour Declaration during World War I ,
15006-476: 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 Assembly recommended partitioning Palestine into two states : Arab and Jewish. However, the situation deteriorated into
15189-730: 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. The earliest human remains in the region were found in Ubeidiya , 3 km south of the Sea of Galilee , in
15372-821: The Palestinian national movement gained international recognition, thanks to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), under Yasser Arafat . In 1993, the Oslo Peace Accords between 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
15555-716: The Persian Empire in the late 330s BCE, beginning Hellenization . In the late 2nd century BCE, the Hasmonean Kingdom conquered most of Palestine, but the kingdom 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 transitioned to Christianity , Palestine became
15738-573: The Philistines and palaistês , which means "wrestler/rival/adversary". This aligns with the Greek practice of punning place names since the latter is also the etymological meaning for Israel . The Septuagint instead used the term "allophuloi" ( άλλόφυλοι , "other nations") throughout the Books of Judges and Samuel, such that the term "Philistines" has been interpreted to mean "non-Israelites of
15921-702: The Promised Land" when used in the context of Samson, Saul and David, and Rabbinic sources explain that these peoples were different from the Philistines of the Book of Genesis . During the Byzantine period , the region of Palestine within Syria Palaestina was subdivided into Palaestina Prima and Secunda , and an area of land including the Negev and Sinai became Palaestina Salutaris . Following
16104-641: The Roman world brought by the Roman civil wars relaxed Rome's grip on Judea. In 40 BCE, the Parthian Empire and their Jewish ally Antigonus the Hasmonean defeated a pro-Roman Jewish force led by high priest Hyrcanus II , Phasael and Herod I , the son of Hyrcanus' leading partisan Antipater . They managed to conquer Syria and Palestine. Antigonus was made King of Judea. Herod fled to Rome, where he
16287-593: The Romans and the Jews, and desolated much of Judea. The center of Jewish life in Palestine moved to the Galilee. During or after the revolt, Hadrian joined the province of Iudaea with Galilee and the Paralia to form the new province of Syria Palaestina , and Jerusalem was renamed " Aelia Capitolina ". Some scholars view these actions as an attempt to disconnect the Jewish people from their homeland, but this theory
16470-710: The Romans restructured the kingdom into five autonomous districts, each with its own religious council with centers in Jerusalem, Sepphoris , Jericho , Amathus , and Gadara . Poleis that had been occupied or even destroyed by the Hasmoneans were rebuilt and they regained their self-governing status. This amounted to a rebirth for many of the Greek cities and made them Rome's trusty allies in an otherwise unruly region. They expressed their gratitude by adopting new dating systems commemorating Rome's advent, renaming themselves after Roman officials, or minting coins with monograms and imprints of Roman officials. The turmoil in
16653-407: The UN's dedicated Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA , about 40% live in the West Bank and Gaza, and 60% in the diaspora. A large number of these diaspora refugees are not integrated into their host countries, as illustrated by the ongoing tension of Palestinians in Lebanon or the 1990–91 Palestinian exodus from Kuwait . These factors have resulted in a Palestinian identity of "suffering", whilst
16836-623: The United Kingdom preceded its spread within the Jewish community. The government of Great Britain publicly supported it during World War I with the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The British began their Sinai and Palestine Campaign in 1915. The war reached southern Palestine in 1917 , progressing to Gaza and around Jerusalem by the end of the year . The British secured Jerusalem in December 1917 . They moved into
17019-437: The West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. None were allowed to return. No Palestinian state was created. The Nakba continued after the end of the war in 1949. Israel prevented Palestinian refugees outside of Israel from returning . Palestinians continued to be expelled , and more Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed, with new Israeli settlements established in their place. Palestinian place names and
17202-603: The West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem . Most were driven into Jordan. This has become known as al-Naksa (the "setback"). After the war, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Some two thousand Palestinians were killed in a massacre led by the Lebanese Front at the Siege of Tel al-Zaatar in 1976, during the Lebanese Civil War . Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were killed or displaced during
17385-618: The accumulation of social power. Evidence of contact and immigration to Lower Egypt is found in the abundance of pottery vessels of southern–Levantine type, found in sites across the Nile , such as Abydos . During the last two hundred years of that period and following the Unification of Egypt and pharaoh Narmer , an Egyptian colony appeared in the southern Levantine coast, with its center at Tell es-Sakan (modern-day Gaza Strip ). The overall nature of this colony as well as its relation with
17568-603: The area in his name. The Egyptian Stelae in the Levant , most notably the Beisan steles , and a burial site yielding a scarab bearing the name Seti found within a Canaanite coffin excavated in the Jezreel Valley , attests to Egypt's presence in the area. The Late Bronze Age collapse had greatly affected the Ancient Near East, including Canaan. The Egyptians withdrew from the area. Layers of destruction from
17751-768: 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 in c. 601 BCE, followed by the Persians who conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE. Alexander the Great conquered
17934-520: The atrocities committed, claiming that many of the expelled Palestinians left willingly or that their expulsion was necessary and unavoidable. Nakba denial has been increasingly challenged since the 1970s in Israeli society, particularly by the New Historians , although the official narrative has not changed. Palestinians observe 15 May as Nakba Day , commemorating the war's events one day after Israel's Independence Day . In 1967 following
18117-766: The autumn of 1948, including the depopulation of Beersheba (21 October), the al-Dawayima massacre (29 October), and the Safsaf massacre (also 29 October). That month, Israel converted the ad hoc military governates ruling over Palestinian Arabs in Israel into a formal military government that controlled nearly all aspects of their lives, including curfews, travel restrictions, employment and other economic restrictions, arbitrary detention and other punishments, and political control. Martial law assisted Israeli efforts to find and expel or kill "infiltrators" in order to prevent Palestinians from repopulating their villages. Most of
18300-555: The coast in the 6th century from which Greek ceramics, artworks, and other luxury items were imported. These items were popular and no well-to-do household in Palestine would have lacked Greek pottery. Local potters imitated the Greek merchandise, though the quality of their goods were inferior to the Greeks. The first coins in Palestine were minted by the Phoenicians followed by Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ashdod. Yehud began minting coins in
18483-856: The coast north of Mount Carmel . Elsewhere, distinguishing the Syrians in Palestine from the Phoenicians, he refers to their land as extending down all the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt. Pliny , writing in Latin in the 1st century CE, describes a region of Syria that was "formerly called Palaestina " among the areas of the Eastern Mediterranean. Since the Byzantine Period, the Byzantine borders of Palaestina ( I and II , also known as Palaestina Prima , "First Palestine", and Palaestina Secunda , "Second Palestine"), have served as
18666-481: The country were erased and replaced with Hebrew names , sometimes derivatives of the historical Palestinian nomenclature, and sometimes new inventions. Numerous non-Jewish historical sites were destroyed, not just during the wars, but in a subsequent process over a number of decades. For example, over 80% of Palestinian village mosques have been destroyed, and artefacts have been removed from museums and archives. A variety of laws were promulgated in Israel to legalize
18849-584: The country which had been devastated through the long years of conflict with the Assyrians. In 601 BCE Nebuchadnezzar launched a failed invasion of Egypt which forced him to withdraw to Babylon to rebuild his army. This failure was interpreted as a sign of weakness, causing some vassal states to defect, among them Judah, leading to the Judahite–Babylonian War . Nebuchadnezzar responded by laying siege to Jerusalem in 598 to end its revolt. In 597,
19032-471: The crisis period were found in several sites, including Hazor , Beit She'an, Megiddo , Lachish , Ekron , Ashdod and Ashkelon . The layers of destruction in Lachish and Megiddo date back to about 1130 BCE, More than a hundred years after the destruction of Hazor circa 1250 BCE, and point to a prolonged period of decline in local civilization. Beginning in the late 13th century and continuing to
19215-488: The death of King Ashurbanipal in 631 BCE weakened the Assyrian empire. This allowed Babylon to revolt and to eventually conquer most of Assyria's territory. Meanwhile, Egypt reasserted its power and created a system of vassal states in the region that were obliged to pay taxes in exchange for military protection. In 616 BCE, Egypt sent its armies north to intervene on behalf of the fading Assyrian empire against
19398-671: The demise of the Ghassulian village-culture of the late Chalcolithic period. It begins in a period of around 600 years of a stable rural society, economically based on a Mediterranean agriculture and with a slow growth in population. This period has been termed the Early Bronze Age I (c. 3700 – 3100 BCE), parallel to the Late Uruk period of Mesopotamia and the pre-dynastic Naqada culture of Egypt . The construction of several temple-like structures in that period attests to
19581-472: The destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture , identity , political rights, and national aspirations . The term is used to describe the events of the 1948 Palestine war in Mandatory Palestine as well as the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel . As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of
19764-401: The development of new pottery forms, the cultivation of grapes, and the extensive use of bronze. Burial customs from this time seemed to be influenced by a belief in the afterlife. The Middle Kingdom Egyptian Execration Texts attest to Canaanite trade with Egypt during this period. The Minoan influence is apparent at Tel Kabri . A DNA analysis published in May 2020 showed that migrants from
19947-596: The dominant Arab tribe; their territory ran from the Hejaz in the south to the Negev in the north through the period of Persian and Hellenistic dominion. In the 330s BCE, Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great conquered the region, which changed hands several times during the wars of the Diadochi and later Syrian Wars . It ultimately fell to the Seleucid Empire between 219 and 200 BCE. During that period,
20130-440: The early 11th century, hundreds of smaller, unprotected village settlements were founded in Canaan, many in the mountainous regions. In some of them, the characteristics identified in a later period with the inhabitants of Israel and Judah, such as the four-room house , appear for the first time. The number of villages reduced in the 11th century, counterbalanced by other settlements reaching the status of fortified townships. After
20313-475: The end of the war, 78% of the total land area of the former Mandatory Palestine was controlled by Israel. The Palestinian national narrative views the Nakba as a collective trauma that defines their national identity and political aspirations. The Israeli national narrative views the Nakba as a component of the War of Independence that established Israel's statehood and sovereignty . Also, they negate or deny
20496-403: The end of the war, Palestine was divided and Palestinians were scattered. Israel held about 78% of Palestine, including the 55% allocated to it by the UN partition plan and about half of the land allocated for a Palestinian state. The West Bank and Gaza Strip comprised the remaining half, and were now held by Jordan and Egypt , respectively. The internationally governed corpus separatum
20679-561: The events of 1948 as the culmination of the Zionist movement and Jewish national aspirations, resulting in military success against invading Arab armies, armistice agreements, and recognition of Israel's legitimacy by the United Nations. While acknowledging some instances of Israeli responsibility for the Palestinian refugee crisis, as documented by historians like Benny Morris, the overarching Israeli narrative accommodates this within
20862-435: The events of 1948. The UN Partition Plan of 1947 assigned 56% of Palestine to the future Jewish state, while the Palestinian majority, 66%, were to receive 44% of the territory. 80% of the land in the to-be Jewish state was already owned by Palestinians; 11% had a Jewish title. Before, during and after the 1947–1949 war, hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated and destroyed. Geographic names throughout
21045-593: The expropriation of Palestinian land. The creation of Palestinian statelessness is a central component of the Nakba and continues to be a feature of Palestinian national life to the present day. All Arab Palestinians became immediately stateless as a result of the Nakba, although some took on other nationalities. After 1948, Palestinians ceased to be simply Palestinian, instead divided into Israeli-Palestinians , East Jerusalem Palestinians, UNRWA Palestinians, West Bank-Palestinians, and Gazan-Palestinians, each with different legal statuses and restrictions, in addition to
21228-593: The fallen kingdom became a Persian province known as Yehud . Except Yehud, at least another four Persian provinces existed in the region: Samaria, Gaza, Ashdod, and Ascalon, in addition to the Phoenician city states in the north and the Arabian tribes in the south. During the same period, the Edomites migrated from Transjordan to the southern parts of Judea , which became known as Idumaea . The Qedarites were
21411-572: The fighting between Israel and the Arab states ended by the winter of 1948. On 11 December 1948, the UN passed Resolution 194 , resolving that Palestinians should be permitted to return to their homes and be compensated for lost or damaged property, and establishing the United Nations Conciliation Commission . Armistices formally ending the war were signed between February and July 1949, but massacres and expulsions of Palestinians continued in 1949 and beyond. By
21594-443: The fortified cities of Judah. In 701 BCE, Sennacherib laid siege to Jerusalem , though the city was never taken. The Assyrian expansion continued southward, gradually conquering Egypt and taking Thebes in 664 BCE. The kingdom of Judah, along with a line of city-states on the coastal plain were allowed to remain independent; from an Assyrian standpoint, they were weak and nonthreatening. Struggles over succession following
21777-457: The global, and particularly European, economic pattern of growth. The beneficiaries of this process were Arabic-speaking Muslims and Christians who emerged as a new layer within the Arab elite. From 1880 large-scale Jewish immigration began, almost entirely from Europe, based on an explicitly Zionist ideology. There was also a revival of the Hebrew language and culture . Christian Zionism in
21960-525: The goodwill of the people in the empire's provinces. In 538 BCE, the Persians allowed the return of exiled Judeans to Jerusalem. The Judeans, who came to be known as Jews , settled in what became known as Yehud Medinata or Yehud, a self-governing Jewish province under Persian rule. The First Temple in Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians, was rebuilt under the auspices of
22143-467: The hinterlands has been debated by archaeologists. Around 3100 BCE the country saw radical change, with the abandonment and destruction of many settlements, including the Egyptian colony. These were quickly replaced by new walled settlements in plains and coastal regions, surrounded by mud-brick fortifications and relied on nearby agricultural hamlets for their food. The Canaanite city-states held trade and diplomatic relations with Egypt and Syria. Parts of
22326-429: The invasion of the Mongol Empire in the late 1250s, the Egyptian Mamluks reunified Palestine under its control, before the Ottoman Empire conquered the region in 1516 and ruled it as Ottoman Syria to the 20th century, largely undisrupted. 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
22509-440: The king Jeconiah of Judah, together with Jerusalem's aristocracy and priesthood, were deported to Babylon. In 587 BCE Nebuchadnezzar besieged and destroyed Jerusalem , bringing an end to the kingdom of Judah. A large number of Judahites were exiled to Babylon . Judah and the Philistine city-states of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron, were dissolved and incorporated into the Neo-Babylonian Empire as provinces. Judah became
22692-484: The kingdom and maintained relations with Rome and Egypt. However, internal strife and external pressures, particularly from the Seleucids and later the Romans, led to the decline of the Hasmonean dynasty. In 63 BCE, a war of succession in the Hasmonean court provided the Roman general Pompey with the opportunity to make the Jewish kingdom a client of Rome, starting a centuries-long period of Roman rule. After sacking Jerusalem , he installed Hyrcanus II , one of
22875-417: The kingdoms of Ammon , Edom and Moab , located in modern-day Jordan, and with the kingdom of Aram-Damascus , located in modern-day Syria. The northwestern region of the Transjordan, known then as Gilead , was also settled by the Israelites . Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. The Omride dynasty greatly expanded
23058-403: The lands. They also indicated an unwillingness to accept any form of territorial division, arguing that it violated the principles of national self-determination in the UN Charter which granted people the right to decide their own destiny. They announced their intention to take all necessary measures to prevent the implementation of the resolution. The central facts of the Nakba during
23241-427: The local population. The Maccabean Revolt , led by Judas Maccabeus , highlighted the growing unrest and resistance against Seleucid authority, eventually leading to significant shifts in power dynamics within the region. The local Hasmonean dynasty emerged from the Maccabean Revolt, with Simon Thassi becoming high priest and ruler, establishing an independent Judea. His successors, notably John Hyrcanus , expanded
23424-425: The name "Palestine" itself were removed from maps and books . Sixty-nine Palestinians were killed in the 1953 Qibya massacre . A few years later, 49 Palestinians were killed in the Kafr Qasim massacre , on the first day of the 1956 Suez Crisis . Palestinians in Israel remained under strict martial law until 1966. During the 1967 Six-Day War , hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees were driven from
23607-424: The nature of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war that "From an operational standpoint, you cannot wage a war like the IDF wants to in Gaza while the masses are between the tanks and the soldiers," he said. "It's the 2023 Gaza Nakba." The term Nakba was first applied to the events of 1948 by Constantin Zureiq , a professor of history at the American University of Beirut , in his 1948 book Ma nā an-Nakba ( The Meaning of
23790-449: The northern highland areas of Palestine and Jordan were administered as Jund al-Urdun , while the southern parts of the latter two formed part of Jund Dimashq , which during the 9th century was attached to the administrative unit of Jund Filastin . The boundaries of the area and the ethnic nature of the people referred to by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE as Palaestina vary according to context. Sometimes, he uses it to refer to
23973-413: The northern kingdom of Israel. In the mid-9th century, it stretched from the vicinity of Damascus in the north to the territory of Moab in the south, ruling over a large number of non-Israelites. In 853 BCE, the Israelite king Ahab led a coalition of anti-Assyrian forces at the Battle of Qarqar that repelled an invasion by King Shalmaneser III of Assyria. Some years later, King Mesha of Moab,
24156-399: The partition but planned to expand Israel's borders beyond what was allocated to it by the UN. In the autumn of 1947, Israel and Jordan, with British approval, secretly agreed to divide the land allocated to Palestine between them after the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly passed Resolution 181 (II) – the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine . At
24339-451: The period of the Bar Kokhba revolt the province was expanded and renamed Syria Palaestina . In 390, during the Byzantine period, the region was split into the provinces of Palaestina Prima , Palaestina Secunda , and Palaestina Tertia . Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s, the military district of Jund Filastin was established. While Palestine's boundaries have changed throughout history, it has generally comprised
24522-486: The phrase " ongoing Nakba " ( Arabic : النکبة المستمرة , romanized : al-nakba al-mustamirra ) has emerged to describe the "continuous experience of violence and dispossession" experienced by the Palestinian people. This term enjoins the understanding of the Nakba not as an event in 1948, but as an ongoing process that continues through to the present day. On November 11, 2023, Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter remarked in an interview on N12 News on
24705-408: The population of Palestine was about 750,000, approximately 94% Arab and 6% Jewish. After the partition of the Ottoman Empire , British-ruled Mandatory Palestine began in 1922. By then, the Jewish population had grown to around 10%. Both the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine referred to the 90% Arab population as "existing non-Jewish communities." Following World War II and
24888-438: The population. Its suppression devastated many of Palestine's villages and major towns. In 1840, Britain intervened and returned control of the Levant to the Ottomans in return for further capitulations . The death of Aqil Agha marked the last local challenge to Ottoman centralization in Palestine, and beginning in the 1860s, Palestine underwent an acceleration in its socio-economic development, due to its incorporation into
25071-405: The province of Yehud , a Jewish administrative division of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Following Cyrus the Great 's conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE, Palestine became part of the Persian Achaemenid Empire . At least five Persian provinces existed in the region: Yehud Medinata , Samaria, Gaza, Ashdod, and Ascalon. The Phoenician city-states continued to prosper in present-day Lebanon, while
25254-436: The province of Judaea " Syria Palaestina ". There is circumstantial evidence linking Hadrian with the name change, but the precise date is not certain. The term is generally accepted to be a cognate of the biblical name Peleshet ( פלשת Pəlésheth , usually transliterated as Philistia ). The term and its derivates are used more than 250 times in Masoretic -derived versions of the Hebrew Bible , of which 10 uses are in
25437-449: The region became heavily hellenized , building tensions between Greeks and locals. In 167 BCE, the Maccabean Revolt erupted, leading to the establishment of an independent Hasmonean Kingdom in Judea. From 110 BCE, the Hasmoneans extended their authority over much of Palestine, including Samaria , Galilee , Iturea , Perea , and Idumea. The Jewish control over the wider region resulted in it also becoming known as Judaea ,
25620-556: The region from 200,000 to 45,000 years ago – lived alongside modern humans dating to 100,000 years ago. In the caves of Shuqba in Ramallah and Wadi Khareitun in Bethlehem , stone, wood and animal bone tools were found and attributed to the Natufian culture (c. 12,800–10,300 BCE). Other remains from this era have been found at Tel Abu Hureura, Ein Mallaha, Beidha and Jericho . Between 10,000 and 5000 BCE, agricultural communities were established. Evidence of such settlements were found at Tel es-Sultan in Jericho and consisted of
25803-455: The region of "Palashtu" or "Pilistu", beginning with Adad-nirari III in the Nimrud Slab in c. 800 BCE through to a treaty made by Esarhaddon more than a century later. Neither the Egyptian nor the Assyrian sources provided clear regional boundaries for the term. The first clear use of the term Palestine to refer to the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt was in 5th century BCE ancient Greece , when Herodotus wrote of
25986-525: The region's control fluctuated due to the military campaigns and political maneuvers. Seleucid rule began in 198 BCE under Antiochus III the Great , who, like the Ptolemies, allowed the Jews to retain their customs and religion. However, financial strains due to obligations to Rome led to unpopular measures, such as temple robberies, which ultimately resulted in Antiochus III's death in 187 BCE. His successors faced similar challenges, with internal conflicts and external pressures leading to dissatisfaction among
26169-469: The region. Ptolemy I and his successor, Ptolemy II Philadelphus , maintained control over Yehud Medinata, with the latter bringing the Ptolemaic dynasty to its zenith by winning the first and second Syrian Wars . Despite these successes, ongoing conflicts with the Seleucids, particularly over the strategic region of Coele-Syria, led to more Syrian Wars. The peace and stability enjoyed by the local population under Ptolemaic rule were disrupted by these wars, and
26352-477: The repercussions of the Nakba as a formative trauma defining its national, political and moral aspirations and its identity. The Palestinian people developed a victimized national identity in which they had lost their country as a result of the 1948 war. From the Palestinian perspective, they have been forced to pay for the Holocaust perpetrated in Europe with their freedom, properties and bodies instead of those who were truly responsible. Shmuel Trigano , writing in
26535-419: The returned Jewish population. Major religious transformations took place in Yehud Medinata. it was during that period that the Israelite religion became exclusively monotheistic – the existence of other Gods was now denied. Previously, Yahweh , Israel's national god, had been seen as one god among many. Many customs and behavior that would come to characterize Judaism were adopted. The region of Samaria
26718-403: The same region, which was followed by Roman writers such as Ovid , Tibullus , Pomponius Mela , Pliny the Elder , Dio Chrysostom , Statius , Plutarch as well as Romano-Jewish writers Philo of Alexandria and Josephus . The term was first used to denote an official province in c. 135 CE, when the Roman authorities , following the suppression of the Bar Kokhba Revolt , renamed
26901-402: The same time, many of those Palestinians who remained in Israel became internally displaced . In 1950, UNRWA estimated that 46,000 of the 156,000 Palestinians who remained inside the borders demarcated as Israel by the 1949 Armistice Agreements were internally displaced refugees. As of 2003, some 274,000 Arab citizens of Israel – or one in four in Israel – were internally displaced from
27084-429: The sea to the caravan route, presumably the Hejaz-Damascus route east of the Jordan River valley. Others refer to it as extending from the sea to the desert. Prior to the Allied Powers victory in World War I and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire , which created the British mandate in the Levant , most of the northern area of what is today Jordan formed part of the Ottoman Vilayet of Damascus ( Syria ), while
27267-447: The second quarter of the 4th century. In 404 BCE, Egypt threw off the Persian yoke and began extending its domain of influence and military might in Palestine and Phoenicia, leading to confrontations with Persia. The political pendulum swung back and forth as territory was conquered and reconquered. For a brief period of time, Egypt controlled both coastal Palestine and Phoenicia. Egypt was eventually reconquered by Persia in 343. By
27450-408: The south. Unlike the people in the provinces, the tribes were considered "friends" with the empire rather than subjects and they enjoyed some independence from Persia. Until the middle of the 4th century, the Qedarites were the dominant tribe whose territory ran from the Hejaz in the south to the Negev in the north. Around 380 BCE, the Qedarites joined a failed revolt against the Persians and as
27633-451: The southern part of Jordan was part of the Vilayet of Hejaz . What later became Mandatory Palestine was in late Ottoman times divided between the Vilayet of Beirut ( Lebanon ) and the Sanjak of Jerusalem . The Zionist Organization provided its definition of the boundaries of Palestine in a statement to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 . The British administered Mandatory Palestine after World War I, having promised to establish
27816-412: The southern portion of regions such as Syria or the Levant. As the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity , Palestine has been a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. In the Bronze Age , it was home to Canaanite city-states; and the later Iron Age saw the emergence of Israel and Judah . It has since come under the sway of various empires, including the Neo-Assyrian Empire ,
27999-507: The tail of the Early Bronze Age and the head of the preceding Middle Bronze Age. Others date the destruction to the end of Early Bronze Age III (c. 2350/2300 BCE) and attribute it to Syrian Amorites , Kurgans , southern nomads or internal conflicts within Canaan. In the Middle Bronze Age (2000–1500 BCE), Canaan was influenced by the surrounding civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia , Phoenicia , Minoan Crete, and Syria. Diverse commercial ties and an agriculturally based economy led to
28182-432: The ten days of renewed fighting between Israel and the Arab states after the first truce, over 50,000 Palestinians were expelled from Lydda and Ramle (9-13 July). A second truce was signed in mid-July and lasted until October. During the two truces, Palestinians who returned to their homes or crops, labelled "infiltrators" by the Israelis, were killed or expelled. Expulsions, massacres, and Israeli expansion continued in
28365-420: The term State of Palestine refers only to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This discrepancy was described by the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas as a negotiated concession in a September 2011 speech to the United Nations: "... we agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine – on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967." The term Palestine
28548-479: The term Nakba in the title of his book Sir al Nakba ( The Secret behind the Disaster ) written in 1955. The use of the term has evolved over time. Initially, the use of the term Nakba among Palestinians was not universal. For example, for many years after 1948, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon avoided and even actively resisted using the term, because it lent permanency to a situation they viewed as temporary, and they often insisted on being called "returnees". In
28731-424: The time referred predominantly to Bedouin nomads, though Arab settlement is attested in the Judean highlands and near Jerusalem by the 5th century, and some tribes had converted to Christianity. The local population engaged in farming, which was considered demeaning, and were called Nabaț , referring to Aramaic -speaking villagers. A ḥadīth , brought in the name of a Muslim freedman who settled in Palestine, ordered
28914-406: The time, Arabs made up about two-thirds of the population and owned about 90% of the land, while Jews made up between a quarter and a third of the population and owned about 7% of the land. The UN partition plan allocated to Israel about 55% of the land, where the population was about 500,000 Jews and 407,000-438,000 Arabs. Palestine was allocated the remaining 45% of the land, where the population
29097-491: The times, and the scientific method based on excavations and statistical methods that consider the number of settlements at the particular age, area of each settlement, density factor for each settlement. Nakba The Nakba ( Arabic : النَّكْبَة , romanized : an-Nakba , lit. 'the catastrophe') is the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with
29280-427: The upper class and as a religious language . Hellenistic Palestine is the term for Palestine during the Hellenistic period , when Achaemenid Syria was conquered by Alexander the Great in 333 BCE and subsumed into his growing Macedonian empire . The conquest was relatively uncomplicated as Persian control of the region had already waned. After his death in 323 BCE, Alexander's empire was divided among his generals,
29463-422: The use of copper and stone tools, brought new migrant groups to the region contributing to an increasingly urban fabric. In the Early Bronze Age (c. 3700–2500 BCE) period, the earliest formation of urban societies and cultures emerged in the region. The period is defined through archaeology, as it is absent from any historical record either from Palestine or contemporary Egyptian and Mesopotamian sources. It follows
29646-425: The war after the British left. However, the armies of the newly independent Arab League states were still weak and unprepared for war, and none of the Arab League states were interested in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Amin al-Husseini at its head. Neither the expansionist King Abdullah I of Jordan nor the British wanted the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. On 14 May,
29829-469: The water supplies of certain towns and villages, including a successful operation that caused a typhoid epidemic in Acre in early May, and an unsuccessful attempt in Gaza that was foiled by the Egyptians in late May. Under intense public anger over Palestinian losses in April, and seeking to take Palestinian territory for themselves in order to counter the Israeli-Jordanian deal, the remaining Arab League states decided in late April and early May to enter
30012-418: The wider Palestinian diaspora who were able to achieve residency outside of historic Palestine and the refugee camps. The first Israeli Nationality Law , passed on 14 July 1952, denationalized Palestinians, rendering the former Palestinian citizenship "devoid of substance", "not satisfactory and is inappropriate to the situation following the establishment of Israel". The Nakba was the primary cause of
30195-414: The withdrawal of the Egyptians, Canaan became home to the Israelites and the Philistines . The Israelites settled the central highlands, a loosely defined highland region stretching from the Judean hills in the south to the Samarian hills in the north. Based on the archaeological evidence, they did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of the indigenous Canaanite peoples. Sometime in
30378-517: The world's longest military occupation in modern times. In 2008 Palestinian hikaye was inscribed to UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage ; the first of four listings reflecting the significance of Palestinian culture globally. In November 2012, the status of Palestinian delegation in the United Nations was upgraded to non-member observer state as the State of Palestine . The boundaries of Palestine have varied throughout history. The Jordan Rift Valley (comprising Wadi Arabah,
30561-406: Was about 725,000-818,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews. Jerusalem and Bethlehem were to be an internationally governed corpus separatum with a population of about 100,000 Arabs and 100,000 Jews. The partition plan was considered by detractors to be pro-Zionist, with 56% of the land allocated to the Jewish state although the Palestinian Arab population numbered twice the Jewish population. The plan
30744-410: Was also granted to Tyre. In the middle of the 4th century the Phoenicians occupied the entire coast as far as Ascalon in the southern coastal plain. Nomadic Arabian tribes roamed the Negev desert. They were of paramount strategic and economic importance to the Persians due to their control of desert trade routes stretching from Gaza in the north, an important trading center, to the Arabian peninsula in
30927-453: Was annexed by another Persian dynasty; the Sassanids , until returning to Byzantine control in 628 CE. Palestine was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate , beginning in 634 CE. In 636, the Battle of Yarmouk during the Muslim conquest of the Levant marked the start of Muslim hegemony over the region, which became known as the military district of Jund Filastin within the province of Bilâd al-Shâm (Greater Syria). In 661, with
31110-411: Was celebrated by most Jews in Palestine, with Zionist leaders, in particular David Ben-Gurion , viewing the plan as a tactical step and a stepping stone to future territorial expansion over all of Palestine. The Arab Higher Committee , the Arab League and other Arab leaders and governments rejected it on the basis that in addition to the Arabs forming a two-thirds majority, they owned a majority of
31293-433: Was discontent with the empire's system of vassal states and set to control them more directly or even turn then into Assyrian provinces. Tiglath Pileser and his successors conquered Palestine beginning in 734 BCE to about 645 BCE. This policy had lasting consequences for Palestine as its strongest kingdoms were crushed, inflicting heavy damage, and parts of the kingdoms' populations were deported. The Kingdom of Israel
31476-421: Was divided between an Israeli-held West Jerusalem and a Jordanian-held East Jerusalem . Israel with its expanded borders was admitted as a member to the United Nations in May 1949. About 156,000 Palestinians remained under military rule in Israel, including many internally displaced persons . The approximately 750,000 Palestinians who were expelled or fled from their homes were now living in refugee camps in
31659-414: Was elected " King of the Jews " by the Roman Senate and was given the task of retaking Judea. In 37 BCE, with Roman support, Herod reclaimed Judea, and the short-lived reemergence of the Hasmonean dynasty came to an end. Herod I, or as became known, Herod the Great , ruled from 37 to 4 BCE. He became known for his many building projects, for increasing the region's prosperity, but also for being
31842-464: Was eradicated in 720 BCE as its capital, Samaria , fell to the Assyrians. The records of Sargon II indicate that he deported 27,290 inhabitants of the kingdom to northern Mesopotamia. Many Israelites migrated to the southern kingdom of Judah. When Hezekiah rose to power in Judah in 715 BCE, he forged an alliance with Egypt and Ashkelon, and revolted against the Assyrians by refusing to pay tribute. In response, Sennacherib of Assyria attacked
32025-407: Was important for creating an Arab Palestine detached from greater Syria ( bilad al-Sham ). According to Pappe, it was an attempt to reinforce the Syrian front in face of Muhammad Ali's invasion. Two years later, Palestine was conquered by Muhammad Ali's Egypt, but Egyptian rule was challenged in 1834 by a countrywide popular uprising against conscription and other measures considered intrusive by
32208-416: Was inhabited by the Samaritans , an ethno-religious group who worship Yahweh, like the Jews, and who claim descent from the original Israelites. The Samaritan temple cult, centered around Mount Gerizim , competed with the Jews' temple cult centered around Mount Moriah in Jerusalem and led to long-lasting animosity between the two groups. Remnants of their temple at Mount Gerizim near Shechem dates to
32391-442: Was necessary to cleanse the hinterland ... ['cleanse' was] the term they used at the time ... there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war"; Morris said this resulted in a "partial" expulsion of Arabs. Still other scholars use different frameworks than "ethnic cleansing": for example, Richard Bessel and Claudia Haake use "forced removal" and Alon Confino uses "forced migration". At
32574-451: Was occupied by the United Kingdom as part of the Sinai and Palestine campaign . Between 1919 and 1922, the League of Nations created the Mandate for Palestine , which came under British administration as Mandatory Palestine through the 1940s. Tensions between Jews and Arabs escalated into the 1947–1949 Palestine war , which ended with the establishment of Israel on most of the territory, and neighboring Jordan and Egypt controlling
32757-516: Was rebuked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . The Nakba encompasses the violent displacement and dispossession of Palestinians, along with the destruction of their society, culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. During the 1947–49 Palestine war , an estimated 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled, comprising around 80% of the Palestinian Arab inhabitants of what became Israel. Almost half of this figure (over 300,000 Palestinians) had fled or had been expelled ahead of
32940-426: Was succeeded by the Umayyad Caliphate , the Abbasid Caliphate , and the Fatimid Caliphate . Following the collapse of the Kingdom of Jerusalem , which had been established through the Crusades , the population of Palestine became predominantly Muslim . In the 13th century, it became part of the Mamluk Sultanate , and after 1516, spent four centuries as part of the Ottoman Empire . During World War I , Palestine
33123-464: Was then annexed as a Babylonian province . The Philistines were also exiled. The defeat of Judah was recorded by the Babylonians. In 539 BCE, the Babylonian empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire . According to the Hebrew Bible and implications from the Cyrus Cylinder , the exiled Jews were eventually allowed to return to Jerusalem . The returned population in Judah were allowed to self-rule under Persian governance, and some parts of
33306-399: Was weakened the pace accelerated. Their territory became known as Idumea. Around the turn of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, the Persians gave the Phoenician kings of Tyre and Sidon , based in modern-day Lebanon , control over the coastal plain all the way to Ashdod. Perhaps to facilitate maritime trade or as a repayment for their naval services. At about the same time, the Upper Galilee
33489-549: Was widespread. Small-scale local skirmishes began on 30 November and gradually escalated until March 1948. When the violence started, Palestinians had already begun fleeing, expecting to return after the war. The massacre and expulsion of Palestinian Arabs and destruction of villages began in December, including massacres at Al-Khisas (18 December 1947), and Balad al-Shaykh (31 December). By March, between 70,000 and 100,000 Palestinians, mostly middle- and upper-class urban elites, were expelled or fled. In early April 1948,
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