Palestine is a geographical region in West Asia. Situated in the Southern Levant, it is usually considered to include Israel and the State of Palestine, though some definitions also include parts of northwestern Jordan. Other historical names for the region include Canaan, the Promised Land, the Land of Israel, or the Holy Land.
The first written records referring to Palestine emerged in the 12th-century BCE Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt, which used the term Peleset for the neighboring people or land. In the 8th century BCE, the Assyrians referred to the region as Palashtu or Pilistu. In the Hellenistic period, these names were carried over into Greek, appearing in the Histories of Herodotus as Palaistine. In 6 CE, the Roman Empire established a province over the area known as Judaea, then in 132 CE (the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt) formed it into 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 the southern portion of regions such as Syria or the Levant. It also conceptually overlaps with several terms of Judeo-Christian tradition, including Canaan, the Promised Land, the Land of Israel, and the Holy Land.
As the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. In the Bronze Age, it was inhabited by the Canaanites; the Iron Age saw the emergence of Israel and Judah, two related kingdoms inhabited by the Israelites. It has since come under the sway of various empires, including the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Revolts by the region's Jews against Hellenistic rule brought a brief period of regional independence under the Hasmonean dynasty, which ended with its gradual incorporation into the Roman Empire (later the Byzantine Empire).
In the 7th century, Palestine was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate, ending Byzantine rule in the region; Rashidun rule 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, part of the Ottoman Empire. During World War I, it was captured 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 directed the region to be under British administration as Mandatory Palestine. Tensions between Jews and Arabs escalated into the 1947–1949 Palestine war, which ended with the territory of the former British Mandate divided between Israel vis-à-vis Jordan (in the West Bank) and Egypt (in the Gaza Strip); later developments in the Arab–Israeli conflict culminated in Israel's seizure of both territories, which has been among the core issues of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
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