Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in

West Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...

. It shares borders with

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

to the north,

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

to the north-east,

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

to the east,

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

to the south-west, and the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

to the west. It occupies the

Palestinian territories The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine ...

of the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

in the east and the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

in the south-west. Israel also has a small coastline on the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

at its southernmost point, and part of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

lies along its eastern border. Its proclaimed capital is

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, while

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

is the country's largest urban area and economic center. Israel is located in a region known as the

Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...

, synonymous with the

Palestine region The region of Palestine, also known as historic Palestine, is a geographical area in West Asia. It includes the modern states of Israel and Palestine, as well as parts of northwestern Jordan in some definitions. Other names for the region i ...

, the

Holy Land The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...

, and

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

. In antiquity, it was home to the Canaanite civilisation followed by the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Situated at a continental crossroad, the region experienced demographic changes under the rule of empires from the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

to the

Ottomans Ottoman may refer to: * Osman I, historically known in English as "Ottoman I", founder of the Ottoman Empire * Osman II, historically known in English as "Ottoman II" * Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empir ...

. European antisemitism in the late 19th century galvanised

Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

, which sought a Jewish homeland in Palestine and gained British support. After

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Britain occupied the region and established

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

in 1920. Increased Jewish immigration in the leadup to

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

and

British foreign policy in the Middle East British foreign policy in the Middle East has involved multiple considerations, particularly over the last two and a half centuries. These included maintaining access to British India, blocking Russian or French threats to that access, protecting ...

led to intercommunal conflict between

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

and

Arabs Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...

, which escalated into a civil war in 1947 after the United Nations (UN) proposed partitioning the land between them. After the end of the British Mandate for Palestine, Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948. Neighboring Arab states invaded the area the next day, beginning the

First Arab–Israeli War First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

. An armistice in 1949 left Israel in control of more territory than the U.N. partition plan had called for; and no new independent Arab state was created as the rest of the former Mandate territory was held by

and

, respectively the

and the

. The majority of

Palestinian Arabs Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

were either expelled or fled in what is known as the

Nakba The Nakba () is the ethnic cleansing; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their s ...

, with those remaining becoming the new state's main minority. Over the following decades, Israel's population increased greatly as the country received an influx of Jews who emigrated, fled or were expelled from the Arab world. Following the 1967

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

, Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Egyptian

Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai ( ; ; ; ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Afri ...

and Syrian

Golan Heights The Golan Heights, or simply the Golan, is a basaltic plateau at the southwest corner of Syria. It is bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon mountains with Mount Hermon in t ...

. After the 1973

Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states led by Egypt and S ...

, Israel signed peace treaties with Egypt—returning the Sinai in 1982— and Jordan. In 1993, Israel signed the

Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of interim agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993; and the Oslo II Accord, signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. They marked the st ...

, which established mutual recognition and limited Palestinian self-governance in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. In the 2020s, it normalised relations with several more Arab countries via the

Abraham Accords The Abraham Accords are bilateral agreements on Arab–Israeli normalization signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and between Israel and Bahrain on September 15, 2020. Mediated by the United States, the announcement of August ...

. However, efforts to resolve the

Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...

after the interim Oslo Accords have not succeeded, and the country has engaged in several wars and clashes with

Palestinian militant groups Palestinian political violence refers to acts of violence or terrorism committed by Palestinians with the intent to accomplish political goals in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Common objectives of political violence by Pal ...

. Israel established and continues to expand settlements across the illegally occupied territories, contrary to international law, and has effectively annexed East Jerusalem and the

in moves largely unrecognised internationally. Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained international

criticism Criticism is the construction of a judgement about the negative or positive qualities of someone or something. Criticism can range from impromptu comments to a written detailed response. , ''the act of giving your opinion or judgment about the ...

—along with accusations that it has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinian people—from human rights organisations and United Nations officials. The country's Basic Laws establish a

parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

elected by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

, the

Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...

, which determines the makeup of the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

headed by the

prime minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

and elects the figurehead

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

. Israel has one of the largest economies in the Middle East, one of the highest standards of living in Asia, the world's 26th-largest economy by nominal GDP and 16th by nominal GDP per capita. One of the most technologically advanced and developed countries in the world, it spends proportionally more on research and development than any other country in the world and is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. Its culture comprises

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

and

Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( ), alternatively the dispersion ( ) or the exile ( ; ), consists of Jews who reside outside of the Land of Israel. Historically, it refers to the expansive scattering of the Israelites out of their homeland in the Southe ...

elements alongside

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

influences.

Etymology

The names Land of Israel and

Children of Israel Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanite populations and other peoples.Mark Smit ...

have historically been used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel and the entire

people respectively. The name ''Israel'' (Hebrew: ;

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, , "

El (God) El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning 'god' or 'deity', or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major Religions of the ancient Near East, ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ''ila'', represents the Predicate (grammar), ...

persists/rules") refers to the patriarch

Jacob Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...

who, according to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' wrestled with the

Angel of the Lord The (or an) Angel of the Lord ( '' mal’āḵ YHWH'' "messenger of Yahweh") is an entity appearing repeatedly in the Tanakh on behalf of the God of Israel. The guessed term ''malakh YHWH'', which occurs 65 times in the text of the Hebrew Bi ...

. The earliest known archaeological artifact to mention the word ''Israel'' as a collective is the

Merneptah Stele The Merneptah Stele, also known as the Israel Stele or the Victory Stele of Merneptah, is an inscription by Merneptah, a pharaoh in ancient Egypt who reigned from 1213 to 1203 BCE. Discovered by Flinders Petrie at Thebes, Egypt, Thebes in 1896, i ...

ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

(dated to the late 13th century BCE).K.L. Noll
''Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: A Textbook on History and Religion,''
A&C Black, 2012, rev.ed. pp. 137ff. Thomas L. Thompson
''Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written & Archaeological Sources,''
Brill, 2000 pp. 275–276 Under the British Mandate (1920–1948), the entire region was known as ''Palestine''. Upon establishment in 1948, the country formally adopted the name ''State of Israel'' (, ; , , ) after other proposed names including ''

'' (), ''Ever'' (from ancestor

Eber Eber (; ; ) is an ancestor of the Ishmaelites and the Israelites according to the Generations of Noah in the Book of Genesis () and the Books of Chronicles (). Lineage Eber (Hebrew: Ever) was a great-grandson of Noah's son Shem and the father ...

), ''

Zion Zion (; ) is a placename in the Tanakh, often used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole. The name is found in 2 Samuel (), one of the books of the Tanakh dated to approximately the mid-6th century BCE. It o ...

'', and ''

Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...

'', were considered but rejected. The name ''Israel'' was suggested by

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...

and passed by a vote of 6–3. In the early weeks after establishment, the government chose the term '' Israeli'' to denote a citizen of the state.

History

Prehistory

The

Ubeidiya prehistoric site Ubeidiya (; ), some 3 km south of the Sea of Galilee, in the Jordan Rift Valley, Israel, is an archaeological site of the early Pleistocene, years ago, preserving traces of one of the early expansions of hominins out of Africa, earliest m ...

in Israel indicates the presence of archaic humans around 1.5 million years ago. The second-oldest evidence of

anatomically modern human Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science ...

s found outside Africa is a 200,000-year-old fossil from

Misliya Cave Misliya Cave (), also known as the "Brotzen Cave" after Fritz Brotzen, who first described it in 1927, is a collapsed cave at Mount Carmel, Israel, containing archaeological layers from the Lower Paleolithic and Middle Paleolithic periods. The s ...

. The

Natufian culture The Natufian culture ( ) is an archaeological culture of the late Epipalaeolithic Near East in West Asia from 15–11,500 Before Present. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentism, sedentary or semi-sedentary population even befor ...

( 10,000 BCE) introduced

sedentism In anthropology, sedentism (sometimes called sedentariness; compare sedentarism) is the practice of living in one place for a long time. As of , the large majority of people belong to sedentary cultures. In evolutionary anthropology and arch ...

and may have been linked to

Proto-Afroasiatic language Proto-Afroasiatic (PAA), also known as Proto-Hamito-Semitic, Proto-Semito-Hamitic, and Proto-Afrasian, is the reconstructed proto-language from which all modern Afroasiatic languages are descended. Though estimations vary widely, it is believed ...

. The beginning of agriculture in the region during the

Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period in Afro-Eurasia from a lifestyle of hunter-gatherer, hunting and gathering to one of a ...

is evidenced by sites such as Nahal Oren.

Bronze and Iron Ages

Early references to "

" and "Canaanites" appear in ancient

Near Eastern The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

and

Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...

texts ( 2000 BCE); these populations were structured as politically independent

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, ...

s. During the

Late Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

(1550–1200 BCE), large parts of Canaan formed

vassal state A vassal state is any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire, in a status similar to that of a vassal in the feudal system in medieval Europe. Vassal states were common among the empires of the Near East, dating back to ...

s of the

New Kingdom of Egypt The New Kingdom, also called the Egyptian Empire, refers to ancient Egypt between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC. This period of History of ancient Egypt, ancient Egyptian history covers the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth, ...

. As a result of the

Late Bronze Age collapse The Late Bronze Age collapse was a period of societal collapse in the Mediterranean basin during the 12th century BC. It is thought to have affected much of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East, in particular Egypt, Anatolia, the Aegea ...

, Canaan fell into chaos, and Egyptian control over the region collapsed. Ancestors of the

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

are thought to have included

ancient Semitic-speaking peoples Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples or Proto-Semitic people were speakers of Semitic languages who lived throughout the ancient Near East and North Africa, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula and Carthage from the 3rd millenniu ...

native to this area. Modern archaeological accounts suggest that the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later

monotheistic Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity.F. L. Cross, Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. A ...

—religion centered on

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

. They spoke an archaic form of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

, known as

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

. Around the same time, the

Philistines Philistines (; LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philistines origi ...

settled on the southern

coastal plain A coastal plain (also coastal plains, coastal lowland, coastal lowlands) is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and an upland area. Formation Coastal plains can f ...

. Most modern scholars agree that the

Exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * Ex ...

narrative in the

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

and

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

did not take place as depicted; however, some elements of these traditions do have historical roots. There is debate about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power. While it is unclear if there was a

United Kingdom of Israel The Kingdom of Israel (Hebrew: מַמְלֶכֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, ''Mamleḵeṯ Yīśrāʾēl'') was an Israelite kingdom that may have existed in the Southern Levant. According to the Deuteronomistic history in the Hebrew Bible, ...

, historians and archaeologists agree that the northern Kingdom of Israel existed by 900 BCE and the

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...

by 850 BCE.Finkelstein, Israel, (2020)
"Saul and Highlands of Benjamin Update: The Role of Jerusalem"
in Joachim J. Krause, Omer Sergi, and Kristin Weingart (eds.), ''Saul, Benjamin, and the Emergence of Monarchy in Israel: Biblical and Archaeological Perspectives'', SBL Press, Atlanta, GA, p. 48, footnote 57: "...They became territorial kingdoms later, Israel in the first half of the ninth century BCE and Judah in its second half..."The Pitcher Is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gosta W. Ahlstrom, Steven W. Holloway, Lowell K. Handy, Continuum, 1 May 1995
Quote: "For Israel, the description of the battle of Qarqar in the Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III (mid-ninth century) and for Judah, a Tiglath-pileser III text mentioning (Jeho-) Ahaz of Judah (IIR67 = K. 3751), dated 734–733, are the earliest published to date." The Kingdom of Israel was the more prosperous of the two and soon developed into a regional power, with a capital at

Samaria Samaria (), the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron (), is used as a historical and Hebrew Bible, biblical name for the central region of the Land of Israel. It is bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The region is ...

; during the Omride dynasty, it controlled

Galilee Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ). ''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...

, the upper Jordan Valley, the plain of Sharon and large parts of Transjordan. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered around 720 BCE by the

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

. The Kingdom of Judah, under Davidic rule with its capital in

, later became a

client state A client state in the context of international relations is a State (polity), state that is economically, politically, and militarily subordinated to a more powerful controlling state. Alternative terms for a ''client state'' are satellite state, ...

of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire and then the

Neo-Babylonian Empire The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC a ...

. It is estimated that the region's population was around 400,000 in the

Iron Age II The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

.Broshi, M., & Finkelstein, I. (1992)
"The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II"
. ''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research'', ''287''(1), 47–60. In 587/6 BCE, following a revolt in Judah, King

Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...

besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and

Solomon's Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (), was a biblical Temple in Jerusalem believed to have existed between the 10th and 6th centuries Common Era, BCE. Its description is largely based on narratives in the Hebrew Bible, in which it ...

, dissolved the kingdom and exiled much of the Judean elite to Babylon.

Classical antiquity

After capturing Babylon in 539 BCE,

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia ( ; 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Media ...

, founder of the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...

, issued a proclamation allowing the exiled Judean population to return. The construction of the

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

was completed . The Achaemenids ruled the region as the province of

Yehud Medinata Yehud Medinata, also called Yehud Medinta ( ) or simply Yehud, was an autonomous province of the Achaemenid Empire. Located in Judea, the territory was distinctly Jews, Jewish, with the High Priest of Israel emerging as a central religious and ...

. In 332 BCE,

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

conquered the region as part of his campaign against the Achaemenid Empire. After his death, the area was controlled by the

Ptolemaic Ptolemaic is the adjective formed from the name Ptolemy, and may refer to: Pertaining to the Ptolemaic dynasty *Ptolemaic dynasty, the Macedonian Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt founded in 305 BC by Ptolemy I Soter *Ptolemaic Kingdom Pertaining t ...

and

Seleucid The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great, a ...

empires as a part of

Coele-Syria Coele-Syria () was a region of Syria in classical antiquity. The term originally referred to the "hollow" Beqaa Valley between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges, but sometimes it was applied to a broader area of the region of Sy ...

. Over the ensuing centuries, the

Hellenisation Hellenization or Hellenification is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language, and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonisation often led to the Hellenisation of indigenous people in the Hellenistic period, many of the te ...

of the region led to cultural tensions that came to a head during the reign of

Antiochus IV Antiochus IV Epiphanes ( 215 BC–November/December 164 BC) was king of the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. Notable events during Antiochus' reign include his near-conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt, his persecution of the Jews of ...

, giving rise to the

Maccabean Revolt The Maccabean Revolt () was a Jewish rebellion led by the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire and against Hellenistic influence on Jewish life. The main phase of the revolt lasted from 167 to 160 BCE and ended with the Seleucids in control of ...

of 167 BCE. The civil unrest weakened Seleucid rule, and in the late 2nd century the semi-autonomous Hasmonean Kingdom of Judea arose, eventually attaining full independence and expanding into neighboring regions. Israel-2013-Aerial 21-Masada

The

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...

invaded the region in 63 BCE, first taking control of Syria, and then intervening in the Hasmonean civil war. The struggle between pro-Roman and pro-

Parthian Parthian may refer to: Historical * Parthian people * A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran * Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) * Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language * Parthian shot, an archery sk ...

factions in Judea led to the installation of

Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...

as a dynastic vassal of

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. In 6 CE, the area was annexed as the

Roman province of Judaea Judaea was a Roman province from 6 to 135 CE, which at its height encompassed the regions of Judea, Idumea, Peraea, Samaria, and Galilee, as well as parts of the coastal plain of the southern Levant. At its height, it encompassed much of ...

; tensions with Roman rule led to a series of

Jewish–Roman wars The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of Judaea against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE. The conflict was driven by Jewish aspirations to restore the political independence lost when Rome conquer ...

, resulting in widespread destruction. The

First Jewish–Roman War The First Jewish–Roman War (66–74 CE), also known as the Great Jewish Revolt, the First Jewish Revolt, the War of Destruction, or the Jewish War, was the first of three major Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire. Fought in the prov ...

(66–73 CE) resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple and a sizable portion of the population being killed or displaced. A second uprising known as the

Bar Kokhba revolt The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 AD) was a major uprising by the Jews of Judaea (Roman province), Judaea against the Roman Empire, marking the final and most devastating of the Jewish–Roman wars. Led by Simon bar Kokhba, the rebels succeeded ...

(132–136 CE) initially allowed the Jews to form an independent state, but the Romans brutally crushed the rebellion, devastating and depopulating Judea's countryside. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a

Roman colony A Roman (: ) was originally a settlement of Roman citizens, establishing a Roman outpost in federated or conquered territory, for the purpose of securing it. Eventually, however, the term came to denote the highest status of a Roman city. It ...

(

Aelia Capitolina Aelia Capitolina (Latin: ''Colonia Aelia Capitolina'' ɔˈloːni.a ˈae̯li.a kapɪtoːˈliːna was a Roman colony founded during the Roman emperor Hadrian's visit to Judaea in 129/130 CE. It was founded on the ruins of Jerusalem, which had b ...

), and the province of Judea was renamed

Syria Palaestina Syria Palaestina ( ) was the renamed Roman province formerly known as Judaea, following the Roman suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt, in what then became known as the Palestine region between the early 2nd and late 4th centuries AD. The pr ...

.H.H. Ben-Sasson,
A History of the Jewish People
', Harvard University Press, 1976, , page 334: "In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Judaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature."Ariel Lewin.
The archaeology of Ancient Judea and Palestine
'. Getty Publications, 2005 p. 33. "It seems clear that by choosing a seemingly neutral name – one juxtaposing that of a neighboring province with the revived name of an ancient geographical entity (Palestine), already known from the writings of Herodotus – Hadrian was intending to suppress any connection between the Jewish people and that land." Jews were expelled from the districts surrounding Jerusalem. Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence, and Galilee became its religious center.

Late antiquity and the medieval period

Early Christianity Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the History of Christianity, historical era of the Christianity, Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Spread of Christianity, Christian ...

displaced Roman paganism in the 4th century CE, with

Constantine Constantine most often refers to: * Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I * Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria Constantine may also refer to: People * Constantine (name), a masculine g ...

embracing and promoting the Christian religion and

Theodosius I Theodosius I ( ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. He won two civil wars and was instrumental in establishing the Nicene Creed as the orthodox doctrine for Nicene C ...

making it the state religion. A series of laws were passed that discriminated against Jews and Judaism, and Jews were persecuted by both the church and the authorities. Many Jews had emigrated to flourishing

diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...

communities, while locally there was both Christian immigration and local conversion. By the middle of the 5th century, there was a Christian majority. Towards the end of the 5th century, Samaritan revolts erupted, continuing until the late 6th century and resulting in a large decrease in the Samaritan population. After the

Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem The Sasanian conquest of Jerusalem in early 614 was a significant event in the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628. After the conquest of Jerusalem and the defeat of the Byzantines, Khosrow II ordered to transfer the true cross to Tisophon. ...

and the short-lived

Jewish revolt against Heraclius The Jewish revolt against Heraclius was part of the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 and is considered the last time Jews had autonomy over Jerusalem prior to modern times. Background Jews and Samaritans were persecuted frequently by the ...

in 614 CE, the Byzantine Empire reconsolidated control of the area in 628. In 634–641 CE, the

Rashidun Caliphate The Rashidun Caliphate () is a title given for the reigns of first caliphs (lit. "successors") — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali collectively — believed to Political aspects of Islam, represent the perfect Islam and governance who led the ...

conquered the Levant. Over the next six centuries, control of the region transferred between the

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...

, and

Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...

caliphates, and subsequently the

Seljuk Seljuk (, ''Selcuk'') or Saljuq (, ''Saljūq'') may refer to: * Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia * Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities * S ...

and

Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egyp ...

dynasties. The population drastically decreased during the following several centuries, dropping from an estimated 1 million during Roman and Byzantine periods to about 300,000 by the early

Ottoman period The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Euro ...

, and there was steady

Arabisation Arabization or Arabicization () is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arab, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic language, culture, literature, art, music, an ...

and

Islamisation The spread of Islam spans almost 1,400 years. The early Muslim conquests that occurred following the death of Muhammad in 632 CE led to the creation of the caliphates, expanding over a vast geographical area; conversion to Islam was boosted ...

. The end of the 11th century brought the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

, papally-sanctioned incursions of Christian crusaders intent on wresting Jerusalem and the

from Muslim control and establishing

crusader states The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities established in the Levant region and southeastern Anatolia from 1098 to 1291. Following the principles of feudalism, the foundation for these polities was laid by the First Crusade ...

. The Ayyubids pushed back the crusaders before Muslim rule was fully restored by the

Mamluk sultans of Egypt The Mamluk Sultanate (), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled medieval Egypt, Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz from the mid-13th to early 16th centuries, with Cairo as its capital. It was ruled by a military c ...

in 1291.

Modern period and the emergence of Zionism

In 1516, the Ottoman Empire conquered the region and ruled it as part of

Ottoman Syria Ottoman Syria () is a historiographical term used to describe the group of divisions of the Ottoman Empire within the region of the Levant, usually defined as being east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Ara ...

.Joel Rappel, History of Eretz Israel from Prehistory up to 1882 (1980), vol. 2, p. 531. "In 1662 Sabbathai Sevi arrived to Jerusalem. It was the time when the Jewish settlements of Galilee were destroyed by the Druze: Tiberias was completely desolate and only a few of former Safed residents had returned...." Two violent incidents took place against Jews, the

1517 Safed attacks The Safed attacks were an incident that took place in Safed soon after the Turkish Ottomans had ousted the Mamluks and taken Levant during the Ottoman–Mamluk War in 1517. At the time the town had roughly 300 Jewish households. The severe blow ...

and the 1517 Hebron attacks, after the Turkish Ottomans ousted the

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

s during the Ottoman–Mamluk War. Under the Ottoman Empire, the Levant was fairly cosmopolitan, with religious freedoms for Christians, Muslims, and Jews. In 1561 the

Ottoman sultan The sultans of the Ottoman Empire (), who were all members of the Ottoman dynasty (House of Osman), ruled over the Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental empire from its perceived inception in 1299 to Dissolution of the Ottoman Em ...

invited

Sephardi Jews Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

escaping the

Spanish Inquisition The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition () was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile and lasted until 1834. It began toward the end of ...

to settle in and rebuild the city of

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...

. Under the Ottoman Empire's

millet system In the Ottoman Empire, a ''millet'' (; ) was an independent court of law pertaining to "personal law" under which a confessional community (a group abiding by the laws of Muslim sharia, Christian canon law, or Jewish halakha) was allowed to rule ...

, Christians and Jews were considered ''

dhimmi ' ( ', , collectively ''/'' "the people of the covenant") or () is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligation under ''s ...

'' ("protected") under

Ottoman law The Ottoman Empire was governed by different sets of laws during its existence. The '' Qanun'', sultanic law, co-existed with religious law (mainly the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence). Legal administration in the Ottoman Empire was part ...

in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the ''

jizya Jizya (), or jizyah, is a type of taxation levied on non-Muslim subjects of a state governed by Sharia, Islamic law. The Quran and hadiths mention jizya without specifying its rate or amount,Sabet, Amr (2006), ''The American Journal of Islamic Soc ...

'' tax. Non-Muslim Ottoman subjects faced geographic and lifestyle restrictions, though these were not always enforced.H. Inalcik; The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600, Phoenix Press, (2001) The millet system organised non-Muslims into autonomous communities on the basis of religion.L. Stavrianos; The Balkans since 1453, NYU Press (2000) The concept of the "return" remained a symbol within religious Jewish belief which emphasised that their return should be determined by Divine Providence rather than human action. Leading Zionist historian

Shlomo Avineri Shlomo Avineri (Hebrew: שלמה אבינרי; born Jerzy Wiener; 20 August 1933 – 30 November 2023) was an Israeli political scientist. He was a professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and member of the Israel A ...

describes this connection: "Jews did not relate to the vision of the Return in a more active way than most Christians viewed the

Second Coming The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is the Christianity, Christian and Islam, Islamic belief that Jesus, Jesus Christ will return to Earth after his Ascension of Jesus, ascension to Heaven (Christianity), Heav ...

." The religious Judaic notion of being a nation was distinct from the modern European notion of nationalism. The Jewish population of Palestine from the Ottoman rule to the beginning of the Zionist movement, known as the

Old Yishuv The Old Yishuv (, ''haYishuv haYashan'') were the Jewish communities of the Land of Israel during the Ottoman period, up to the onset of Zionist aliyah waves, and the consolidation of the new Yishuv by the end of World War I. Unlike the new Yis ...

, comprised a minority and fluctuated in size. During the 16th century, Jewish communities struck roots in the

Four Holy Cities In Judaism, the "Four Holy Cities" are Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safed. Revered for their significance to Jewish history, they began to again serve as major centres of Jewish life after the Ottoman conquest of the Levant. According to '' ...

—Jerusalem, Tiberias,

Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...

, and

Safed Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. Safed has been identified with (), a fortif ...

—and in 1697, Rabbi Yehuda Hachasid led 1,500 Jews to Jerusalem. A 1660 Druze revolt against the Ottomans destroyed

and

. In the second half of the 18th century, Eastern European Jews who were opponents of

Hasidism Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a Spirituality, spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most ...

, known as the

Perushim The ''perushim'' () were Jewish disciples of the Vilna Gaon, Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, who left Lithuania at the beginning of the 19th century to settle in the Land of Israel, which was then part of Ottoman Syria. They were from the section o ...

, settled in Palestine. In the late 18th century, local Arab Sheikh

Zahir al-Umar Zahir al-Umar al-Zaydani, alternatively spelled Dhaher el-OmarDAAHL Site Rec ...

created a de facto independent emirate in the Galilee. Ottoman attempts to subdue the sheikh failed. After Zahir's death the Ottomans regained control of the area. In 1799, governor

Jazzar Pasha Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar (, c. 1720–30s7 May 1804) was the Acre-based Bosniak Ottoman governor of Sidon Eyalet from 1776 until his death in 1804 and the simultaneous governor of Damascus Eyalet in 1785–1786, 1790–1795, 1798–1799, and 1803 ...

repelled an assault on Acre by

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

's troops, prompting the French to abandon the Syrian campaign. In 1834, a revolt by Palestinian Arab peasants against Egyptian conscription and taxation policies under

Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and social activist. A global cultural icon, widely known by the nickname "The Greatest", he is often regarded as the gr ...

was suppressed; Muhammad Ali's army retreated and Ottoman rule was restored with British support in 1840. The

Tanzimat The (, , lit. 'Reorganization') was a period of liberal reforms in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Edict of Gülhane of 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. Driven by reformist statesmen such as Mustafa Reşid Pash ...

reforms were implemented across the Ottoman Empire. The first wave of modern Jewish migration to Ottoman-ruled Palestine, known as the

First Aliyah The First Aliyah (), also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (''aliyah'') to History of Israel#Ottoman period , Ottoman Palestine (region) , Palestine between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave cam ...

, began in 1881, as Jews fled

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

s in Eastern Europe. The 1882

May Laws Temporary regulations regarding the Jews (also known as May Laws) were residency and business restrictions on Jews in the Russian Empire, proposed by minister Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev and enacted by Tsar Alexander III on . Originally, intende ...

increased economic discrimination against Jews, and restricted where they could live. In response, political

took form, a movement that sought to establish a

Jewish state In world politics, Jewish state is a characterization of Israel as the nation-state and sovereign homeland for the Jewish people. Overview Modern Israel came into existence on 14 May 1948 as a polity to serve as the homeland for the Jewi ...

in Palestine, thus offering a solution to the

Jewish question The Jewish question was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century Europe that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews. The debate, which was similar to other " national questions", dealt with the civil, legal, national, ...

of the European states. Antisemitism, pogroms and official policies in tsarist Russia led to the emigration of three million Jews in the years between 1882 and 1914, only 1% of whom went to Palestine. Those who went to Palestine were driven primarily by ideas of self-determination and Jewish identity, rather than as a response to pogroms or economic insecurity. The

Second Aliyah The Second Aliyah () was an aliyah (Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel) that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 35,000 Jews, mostly from Russia, with some from Yemen, immigrated into Ottoman Palestine. The Sec ...

(1904–1914) began after the

Kishinev pogrom The Kishinev pogrom or Kishinev massacre was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev (modern Chișinău, Moldova), then the capital of the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire, on . During the pogrom, which began on Easter Day, ...

; some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine, although nearly half left eventually. Both the first and second waves of migrants were mainly

Orthodox Jews Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as literally revealed by God on Mount Sinai and faithfully tr ...

. The Second Aliyah included Zionist socialist groups who established the ''

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

'' movement based on the idea of establishing a separate Jewish economy based exclusively on Jewish labour. Those of the Second Aliyah who became leaders of the

Yishuv The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...

in the coming decades believed that the Jewish settler economy should not depend on Arab labour. This would be a dominant source of antagonism with the Arab population, with the new Yishuv's nationalist ideology overpowering its socialist one. Though the immigrants of the Second Aliyah largely sought to create communal Jewish agricultural settlements,

was established as the first planned Jewish town in 1909. Jewish armed militias emerged during this period, the first being

Bar-Giora Bar-Giora () was a Jewish militia in Palestine (then part of the Ottoman Empire) from 1907 to 1909. The group was composed primarily of Russian Jewish immigrants of the Second Aliyah. The organization was a precursor of Hashomer, itself a precu ...

in 1907. Two years later, the larger

Hashomer Hashomer (, 'The Watchman') was a Jewish defense organization in Palestine founded in April 1909. It was an outgrowth of the Bar-Giora group and was disbanded after the founding of the Haganah in 1920. Hashomer was responsible for guarding Je ...

organisation was founded as its replacement.

British Mandate for Palestine

Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( ; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as president of the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organization and later as the first pre ...

's efforts to garner British support for the Zionist movement eventually secured the

Balfour Declaration The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman regio ...

of 1917, stating Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish " national home" in Palestine. Weizmann's interpretation of the declaration was that negotiations on the future of the country were to happen directly between Britain and the Jews, excluding Arabs. Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine deteriorated dramatically in the following years. In 1918, the

Jewish Legion The Jewish Legion was a series of battalions of Jewish soldiers who served in the British Army during the First World War. Some participated in the British conquest of Palestine from the Ottomans. The formation of the battalions had several ...

, primarily Zionist volunteers, assisted in the British conquest of Palestine. In 1920, the territory was divided between Britain and France under the mandate system, and the British-administered area (including modern Israel) was named

. Arab opposition to British rule and Jewish immigration led to the

1920 Palestine riots The 1920 Nebi Musa riots or 1920 Jerusalem riots took place in British-controlled part of Occupied Enemy Territory Administration between Sunday, 4 April, and Wednesday, 7 April 1920 in and around the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City of Jerusale ...

and the formation of a Jewish militia known as the

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

as an outgrowth of Hashomer, from which the

Irgun The Irgun (), officially the National Military Organization in the Land of Israel, often abbreviated as Etzel or IZL (), was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of th ...

and Lehi paramilitaries later split. In 1922, the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

granted Britain the

Mandate for Palestine The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British Empire, British administration of the territories of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine and Emirate of Transjordan, Transjordanwhich had been Ottoman Syria, part of the Ottoman ...

under terms which included the Balfour Declaration with its promise to the Jews and with similar provisions regarding the Arab Palestinians. The population of the area was predominantly Arab and Muslim, with Jews accounting for about 11% and Arab Christians about 9.5% of the population. The

Third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system Places * 3rd Street (di ...

(1919–1923) and

Fourth Aliyah The Fourth Aliyah () refers to the fourth wave of the Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine, mainly from Europe, between the years 1924 and 1928. The character of the Fourth Aliyah Starting around 1924 the character and the composition of t ...

s (1924–1929) brought an additional 100,000 Jews to Palestine. The

rise of Nazism The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

and the increasing persecution of Jews in 1930s Europe led to the

Fifth Aliyah The Fifth Aliyah () refers to the fifth wave of the Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe and Asia between the years 1929 and 1939, with the arrival of 225,000 to 300,000 Jews. The Fifth Aliyah, or fifth immigration wave, began after the co ...

, with an influx of a quarter of a million Jews. This was a major cause of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, Arab revolt of 1936–39, which was suppressed by British security forces and Zionist militias. Several hundred British security personnel and Jews were killed; 5,032 Arabs were killed, 14,760 wounded, and 12,622 detained. An estimated ten percent of the adult male Palestinian people, Palestinian Arab population was killed, wounded, imprisoned, or exiled. The British introduced restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine with the White Paper of 1939. With countries around the world turning away Jewish refugees fleeing

, a clandestine movement known as Aliyah Bet was organised to bring Jews to Palestine. By the end of World War II, 31% of the population of Palestine was Jewish. The UK found itself facing a Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, Jewish insurgency over immigration restrictions and continued conflict with the Arab community over limit levels. The Haganah joined Irgun and Lehi in an armed struggle against British rule. The Haganah attempted to bring tens of thousands of Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors to Palestine by ship. Most of the ships were intercepted by the Royal Navy and the refugees placed in detention camps in Atlit detainee camp, Atlit and Cyprus internment camps, Cyprus. UN Palestine Partition Versions 1947

On 22 July 1946, Irgun King David Hotel bombing, bombed the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, killing 91.Encyclopædia Britannica
article on the Irgun Zvai LeumiThurston Clarke, Clarke, Thurston. ''By Blood and Fire'', G.P. Puttnam's Sons, 1981 The attack was a response to Operation Agatha (a series of raids, including one on the Jewish Agency for Israel, Jewish Agency, by the British) and was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era. The Jewish insurgency continued throughout 1946 and 1947 despite concerted efforts by the British military and Palestine Police Force to suppress it. British efforts to mediate with Jewish and Arab representatives also failed as the Jews were unwilling to accept any solution that did not involve a Jewish state and suggested a partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, while the Arabs were adamant that a Jewish state in any part of Palestine was unacceptable and that the only solution was a unified Palestine under Arab rule. In February 1947, the British referred the Palestine issue to the newly formed United Nations. On 15 May 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations, UN General Assembly resolved that a United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, Special Committee be created "to prepare ... a report on the question of Palestine". The Report of the Committee United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, proposed a plan to replace the British Mandate with "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem [...] the last to be under an International Trusteeship System". Meanwhile, the Jewish insurgency continued and peaked in July 1947, with a series of widespread guerrilla raids culminating in the Sergeants affair, in which the Irgun took two British sergeants hostage as attempted leverage against the planned execution of three Irgun operatives. After the executions were carried out, the Irgun killed the two British soldiers, hanged their bodies from trees, and left a booby trap at the scene which injured a British soldier. The incident caused widespread outrage in the UK.Hoffman, Bruce: ''Anonymous Soldiers'' (2015) In September 1947, the British cabinet decided to evacuate Palestine as the Mandate was no longer tenable. On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly adopted United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, Resolution 181 (II). The plan attached to the resolution was essentially that proposed in the report of 3 September. The Jewish Agency, the recognised representative of the Jewish community, accepted the plan, which assigned 55–56% of Mandatory Palestine to the Jews. At the time, the Jews were about a third of the population and owned around 6–7% of the land. Arabs constituted the majority and owned about 20% of the land, with the remainder held by the Mandate authorities or foreign landowners.: "The immediate trigger of the 1948 War was the November 1947 UN partition resolution. The Zionist movement, except for its fringes, accepted the proposal." The Arab League and Arab Higher Committee of Palestine rejected it on the basis that the partition plan privileged European interests over those of the Palestinians, and indicated that they would reject any other plan of partition. On 1 December 1947, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike, and 1947 Jerusalem riots, riots broke out in Jerusalem. The situation spiraled into a civil war. Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones announced that the British Mandate would end on 15 May 1948, at which point the British would evacuate. As Arab militias and gangs attacked Jewish areas, they were faced mainly by the Haganah as well as the smaller Irgun and Lehi. In April 1948, the Haganah moved onto the offensive.

State of Israel

Independence and early years

On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate,

, the head of the Jewish Agency, declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel". The following day, the armies of four Arab countries—Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq—entered what had been Mandatory Palestine, launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War; contingents from Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, Yemen, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan joined the war. The purpose of the invasion was to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state. The Arab League stated the invasion was to restore order and prevent further bloodshed. After a year of fighting, a 1949 Armistice Agreements, ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line (Israel), Green Line, were established. Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, Jordan annexed what became known as the

, including East Jerusalem, and Occupation of the Gaza Strip by the United Arab Republic, Egypt occupied the

. Over 700,000 Palestinians 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, fled or were expelled by Zionist political violence, Zionist militias and the Israel Defense Forces, Israeli military—what would become known in Arabic as the ('catastrophe'). The events also led to the destruction of most of Palestine's Arab Culture of Palestine, culture, Palestinian identity, identity, and Palestinian nationalism, national aspirations. Some 156,000 Arabs remained and became Arab citizens of Israel. By United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted as a member of the UN on 11 May 1949. In the early years of the state, the Labor Zionism, Labour Zionist movement led by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion dominated Politics of Israel, Israeli politics. Immigration to Israel during the late 1940s and early 1950s was aided by the Israeli Immigration Department and the non-government sponsored Mossad LeAliyah Bet ( "Institute for Aliyah Bet, Immigration B"). The latter engaged in clandestine operations in countries, particularly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, where the lives of Jews were in danger and exit was difficult. Mossad LeAliyah Bet was disbanded in 1953. The immigration was in accordance with the One Million Plan. Some immigrants held Zionist beliefs or came for the promise of a better life, while others moved to escape persecution or were expelled from their homes. An Aliyah#Early statehood (1948–1960), influx of Holocaust survivors and Jewish exodus from the Muslim world, Jews from Arab and Muslim countries to Israel during the first three years increased the number of Jews from 700,000 to 1,400,000. By 1958, the population had risen to two million. Between 1948 and 1970, approximately 1,150,000 Jewish refugees relocated to Israel. Some immigrants arrived as refugees and were housed in temporary camps known as ''ma'abarot''; by 1952, over 200,000 people were living in these tent cities. Ashkenazi Jews, Jews of European background were often treated more favourably than Jews from Mizrahi Jews, Middle Eastern and Sephardi Jews, North African countries—housing units reserved for the latter were often re-designated for the former, so Jews newly arrived from Arab lands generally ended up staying longer in transit camps. During this period, food, clothes and furniture were rationed in what became known as the Austerity in Israel, austerity period. The need to solve the crisis led Ben-Gurion to sign a Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany, reparations agreement with West Germany that triggered mass protests by Jews angered at the idea that Israel could accept monetary compensation for the Holocaust.

Arab–Israeli conflict

During the 1950s, Israel was List of attacks against Israeli civilians before 1967, frequently attacked by Palestinian fedayeen, nearly always against civilians, mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip, leading to several Israeli reprisal operations. In 1956, the UK and France aimed at regaining control of the Suez Canal, which Egypt had nationalised. The continued blockade of the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, together with increasing fedayeen attacks against Israel's southern population and recent Arab threatening statements, prompted Israel to attack Egypt. Israel joined Protocol of Sèvres, a secret alliance with the UK and France and overran the Sinai Peninsula in the Suez Crisis but was pressured to withdraw by the UN in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights. The war resulted in significant reduction of Israeli border infiltration. In the early 1960s, Israel captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to Israel Eichmann trial, for trial. Eichmann remains the only person executed in Israel by conviction in an Israeli civilian court. In 1963, Israel was engaged in a diplomatic standoff with the United States in relation to the Israeli Nuclear weapons and Israel, nuclear programme. Since 1964 Arab countries, concerned over Israeli plans to divert waters of the Jordan River into the

, had been trying to divert the headwaters to deprive Israel of water resources, War over Water (Jordan River), provoking tensions between Israel on the one hand, and Syria and Lebanon on the other. Arab nationalists led by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser refused to recognise Israel and called for its destruction. By 1966 Israeli-Arab relations had deteriorated to the point of battles taking place between Israeli and Arab forces. Six Day War Territories

In May 1967, Egypt massed its army near the border with Israel, expelled United Nations Emergency Force, UN peacekeepers stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since 1957, and blocked Israel's access to the Red Sea. Other Arab states mobilised their forces. Israel reiterated that these actions were a ''casus belli'' and launched a pre-emptive strike (Operation Focus) against Egypt in June. Jordan, Syria and Iraq attacked Israel. In the

, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem. The 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories, occupied territories. Following the 1967 war and the "Khartoum Resolution, Three Nos" resolution of the Arab League, Israel faced attacks from the Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula during the 1967–1970 War of Attrition, and from Palestinian groups targeting Israelis in the occupied territories, globally, and in Israel. Most important among the Palestinian and Arab groups was the Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), established in 1964, which initially committed itself to "armed struggle as the only way to liberate the homeland". In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Palestinian political violence, Palestinian groups launched attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, including Munich massacre, a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The Israeli government responded with an Mossad assassinations following the Munich massacre, assassination campaign against the organisers of the massacre, 1972 Israeli air raid in Syria and Lebanon, a bombing and a 1973 Israeli raid in Lebanon, raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon. On 6 October 1973, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched Operation Badr (1973), a surprise attack against Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, opening the

. The war ended on 25 October with Israel repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but suffering great losses. An Agranat Commission, internal inquiry exonerated Fifteenth government of Israel, the government of responsibility for failures before and during the war, but public anger forced Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign. In July 1976, an airliner was hijacked in flight from Israel to France by Palestinian guerrillas; Israeli commandos Operation Entebbe, rescued 102 of 106 Israeli hostages.

Peace process

The 1977 Israeli legislative election, 1977 Knesset elections marked a major turning point in Israeli political history as Menachem Begin's Likud party took control from the Israeli Labor Party, Labour Party. Later that year, Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat made a trip to Israel and spoke before the

in what was the first recognition of Israel by an Arab head of state. Sadat and Begin signed the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty (1979). In return, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and agreed to enter negotiations over autonomy for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. On 11 March 1978, a PLO guerilla raid from Lebanon led to the Coastal Road massacre. Israel responded by launching an 1978 South Lebanon conflict, invasion of southern Lebanon to destroy PLO bases. Begin's government meanwhile provided incentives for Israeli settlement, Israelis to settle in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, occupied West Bank, increasing friction with the Palestinians there. The 1980 Jerusalem Law was believed by some to reaffirm Israel's 1967 annexation of Jerusalem by government decree and UN Security Council Resolution 478, reignited international controversy over the Status of Jerusalem, status of the city. No Israeli legislation has defined the territory of Israel, and no act specifically included East Jerusalem therein. In 1981 Israel Golan Heights Law, effectively annexed the Golan Heights. The international community largely rejected these moves, with the UN Security Council declaring both the Jerusalem Law and the Golan Heights Law null and void. Several waves of Beta Israel, Ethiopian Jews Aliyah from Ethiopia, immigrated to Israel since the 1980s, while between 1990 and 1994, 1990s post-Soviet aliyah, immigration from the post-Soviet states increased Israel's population by twelve percent. On 7 June 1981, during the Iran–Iraq War, the Operation Opera, Israeli air force destroyed Iraq's sole nuclear reactor, then under construction, in order to impede the Iraqi nuclear weapons programme. Following a series of PLO attacks in 1982, Israel 1982 Lebanon War, invaded Lebanon to destroy the PLO bases. In the first six days, Israel destroyed the military forces of the PLO in Lebanon and decisively defeated the Syrians. An Israeli government inquiry (the Kahan Commission) held Begin and several Israeli generals indirectly responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre and held Ministry of Defense (Israel), defence minister Ariel Sharon as bearing "personal responsibility". Sharon was forced to resign. In 1985, Israel responded to a Palestinian Larnaca yacht killings, terrorist attack in Cyprus by Operation Wooden Leg, bombing the PLO headquarters in Tunisia. Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986 but continued to Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon, occupy a borderland buffer zone in southern Lebanon until 2000, from where Israeli forces South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000), engaged in conflict with Hezbollah. The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, broke out in 1987, with waves of uncoordinated demonstrations and violence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Over the following six years, the intifada became more organised and included economic and cultural measures aimed at disrupting the Israeli occupation. Over 1,000 people were killed. During the 1991 Gulf War, the PLO supported Saddam Hussein and Iraqi missile Iraqi rocket attacks on Israel, attacks against Israel. Despite public outrage, Israel heeded American calls to refrain from hitting back. In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister following 1992 Israeli legislative election, an election in which his party called for compromise with Israel's neighbours. The following year, Shimon Peres on behalf of Israel and Yasser Arafat for the PLO signed the

, which gave the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian National Authority (PNA) the right to govern West Bank areas in the Oslo II Accord, parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The PLO also Israel–Palestine Liberation Organization letters of recognition, recognised Israel's right to exist and pledged an end to terrorism. In 1994, the Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalise relations with Israel. Arab public support for the Accords was damaged by the continuation of Israeli settlements and Israeli checkpoint, checkpoints, and the deterioration of economic conditions. Israeli public support for the Accords waned after List of Palestinian suicide attacks, Palestinian suicide attacks. In November 1995, Rabin assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a far-right Jew who opposed the Accords. During Benjamin Netanyahu's premiership at the end of the 1990s, Israel Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron, agreed to withdraw from

, though this was never ratified or implemented, and he signed the Wye River Memorandum. The agreement dealt with further redeployments in the West Bank and security issues. The memorandum was criticised by major international human rights organisations for its "encouragement" of human rights abuses. Ehud Barak, 1999 Israeli general election, elected prime minister in 1999, withdrew forces from southern Lebanon and conducted negotiations with PNA Chairman Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton at the 2000 Camp David Summit. Barak offered a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state, including the entirety of the Gaza Strip and over 90% of the West Bank with Jerusalem as a shared capital. Each side blamed the other for the failure of the talks.

21st century

In late 2000, after a controversial visit by Sharon to the Temple Mount, the Second Intifada began. The popular uprising faced disproportionate repression from the Israeli state. Palestinian suicide attacks, Palestinian suicide bombings eventually developed into a recurrent feature of the intifada. Some commentators contend that the intifada was pre-planned by Arafat after the collapse of peace talks. Sharon became prime minister in a 2001 Israeli prime ministerial election, 2001 election; he carried out his plan to Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip, unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and spearheaded the construction of the West Bank barrier, ending the intifada. Between 2000 and 2008, 1,063 Israelis, 5,517 Palestinians and 64 foreign citizens were killed. In July 2006, a Hezbollah artillery assault on Israel's northern border communities and a 2006 Hezbollah cross-border raid, cross-border abduction of two Israeli soldiers precipitated the month-long 2006 Lebanon War, Second Lebanon War, including an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The war wound down in August 2006 after the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701; Israeli forces mostly withdrew from Lebanon by October 2006 but continued to occupy the Lebanese portion of Ghajar village. In 2007 the Israeli Air Force Operation Outside the Box, destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria. In 2008, 2008 Israel–Hamas ceasefire, a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel collapsed, resulting in the three-week Gaza War (2008–2009), Gaza War. In what Israel described as a response to List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel in 2012, over a hundred Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli cities, Israel began 2012 Gaza War, an operation in the Gaza Strip in 2012, lasting eight days. Israel started another 2014 Gaza War, operation in Gaza following an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas in July 2014. In May 2021 another 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, round of fighting took place in Gaza and Israel, lasting eleven days. By the 2010s, Arab–Israeli alliance, increasing regional cooperation between Israel and Arab League countries have been established, culminating in the signing of the

. The Israeli security situation shifted from the traditional Arab–Israeli conflict towards the Iran–Israel proxy conflict and Iran–Israel conflict during the Syrian civil war, direct confrontation with Iran during the Syrian civil war. On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militant groups from Gaza, led by Hamas, launched 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, a series of coordinated attacks on Israel, leading to the start of the Gaza war. On that day, approximately 1,300 Israelis, predominantly civilians, were killed in communities near the Gaza Strip border and Re'im music festival massacre, during a music festival. Gaza war hostage crisis, Over 200 hostages were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. After clearing militants from its territory, Israel launched Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, one of the most destructive bombing campaigns in modern history and Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, invaded Gaza on 27 October with the stated objectives of destroying Hamas and freeing hostages. The fifth war of the Gaza–Israel conflict since 2008, it has been the deadliest for Palestinians in the entire

and the most significant military engagement in the region since the

in 1973. After nearly a year of Israel–Hezbollah conflict (2023–present), Israel–Hezbollah conflict from October 2023 due to Hezbollah shooting rockets at Israel to support Hamas in Gaza, Israel 2024 Hezbollah headquarters strike, assassinated Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024 and then 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, invaded Lebanon in October 2024. A November 2024 2024 Israel–Lebanon ceasefire agreement, ceasefire agreement instructed Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, which Israel mostly did by February 2025, but against the agreement Israeli forces stayed in five military outposts on highlands in Southern Lebanon. A Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People, United Nations Special Committee, South Africa's genocide case against Israel, multiple governments, and various experts and human rights organisations have concluded that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people due to the harm and loss of life inflicted on civilians during the Gaza war, Gaza War.

Geography

Israel is located in the Levant area of the Fertile Crescent. At the Eastern Mediterranean, eastern end of the

, it is bounded by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan and the West Bank to the east, and Egypt and the Gaza Strip to the south-west. It lies between latitudes 29th parallel north, 29° and 34th parallel north, 34° N, and longitudes 34th meridian east, 34° and 36th meridian east, 36° E. The sovereign territory of Israel (according to the demarcation lines of the 1949 Armistice Agreements and excluding all territories captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War) is approximately , of which two percent is water. However Israel is so narrow (100 km at its widest, compared to 400 km from north to south) that the exclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean is double the land area of the country. The total area under Israeli law, including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, is , and the total area under Israeli control, including the military-controlled and partially Palestinian-governed territory of the West Bank, is . Despite its small size, Israel is home to a variety of geographic features, from the Negev desert in the south to the inland fertile Jezreel Valley, with mountain ranges of the

, Mount Carmel, Carmel and towards the Golan Heights, Golan in the north. The Israeli coastal plain on the shores of the Mediterranean is home to most of the population. East of the central highlands lies the Jordan Rift Valley, a small part of the Great Rift Valley. The Jordan River runs along the Jordan Rift Valley, from Mount Hermon through the Hulah Valley and the Sea of Galilee to the

, the Extreme points of Earth, lowest point on the surface of the Earth. Further south is the Arabah, ending with the Gulf of Aqaba, Gulf of Eilat, part of the

. Makhtesh, or "erosion cirques" are unique to the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, the largest being the Makhtesh Ramon at 38 km in length. Israel has the largest number of plant species per square meter of the countries in the Mediterranean Basin and contains four terrestrial ecoregions: Eastern Mediterranean conifer–sclerophyllous–broadleaf forests, Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests, Arabian Desert, and Mesopotamian shrub desert. Forests accounted for 8.5% of the area in 2016, up from 2% in 1948, as the result of a large-scale forest planting programme by the Jewish National Fund.

Tectonics and seismicity

The Jordan Rift Valley is the result of tectonic movements within the Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system. The DST forms the transform fault, transform boundary between the African Plate to the west and the Arabian Plate to the east. The Golan Heights and all of Jordan are part of the Arabian Plate, while the Galilee, West Bank, Coastal Plain, and Negev along with the Sinai Peninsula are on the African Plate. This tectonic disposition leads to a relatively high seismic activity. The entire Jordan Valley segment is thought to have ruptured repeatedly, for instance during the last two major earthquakes along this structure in 749 Galilee earthquake, 749 and 1033 Jordan Valley earthquake, 1033. The deficit in Fault (geology)#Slip, heave, throw, slip that has built up since 1033 is sufficient to cause an earthquake of ~7.4. The most catastrophic known earthquakes occurred in 31 BCE, 363 Galilee earthquake, 363, 749, and 1033 CE, that is every 400 years on average.American Friends of the Tel Aviv University, ''Earthquake Experts at Tel Aviv University Turn to History for Guidance'' (4 October 2007). Quote: The major ones were recorded along the Jordan Valley in the years 31 B.C.E., 363 C.E., 749 C.E., and 1033 C.E. "So roughly, we are talking about an interval of every 400 years. If we follow the patterns of nature, a major quake should be expected any time because almost a whole millennium has passed since the last strong earthquake of 1033." (Tel Aviv University Associate Professor Dr. Shmuel (Shmulik) Marco)

Destructive earthquakes strike about every 80 years, leading to serious loss of life .Zafrir Renat, ''Israel Is Due, and Ill Prepared, for Major Earthquake'', Haaretz, 15 January 2010. "On average, a destructive earthquake takes place in Israel once every 80 years, causing serious casualties and damage.

While stringent construction regulations are in place and recently built structures are earthquake resistant, many public buildings as well as 50,000 residential buildings did not meet the new standards and were "expected to collapse" if exposed to a strong earthquake.

Climate

Temperatures vary widely, especially during the winter. Coastal areas, such as those of Tel Aviv and Haifa, have a typical Mediterranean climate with cool, rainy winters and long, hot summers. The area of Beersheba and the northern Negev have a semi-arid climate with hot summers, cool winters, and fewer rainy days. The southern Negev and the Arabah areas have a desert climate with very hot, dry summers, and mild winters with few days of rain. The highest temperature of 54 °C (129 °F) was recorded in 1942 in the Tirat Zvi kibbutz. Mountainous regions can be windy and cold, and areas at elevation of or more (same elevation as Jerusalem) usually receive at least one Snow in Israel, snowfall each year. From May to September, rain is rare. There are four different Phytogeography, phytogeographic regions, due to its location between the temperate and tropical zones. For this reason, the flora and fauna are extremely diverse. There are 2,867 known List of endemic flora of Israel, species of plants in Israel. Of these, at least 253 species are List of adventive wild plants in Israel, introduced and non-native. There are 380 National parks and nature reserves of Israel, Israeli nature reserves. With scarce water resources, Israel has developed various water-saving technologies, including drip irrigation. The considerable sunlight available for solar energy makes Solar power in Israel, Israel the leading nation in solar energy use per capita—practically every house uses solar panels for water heating. The Ministry of Environmental Protection (Israel), Ministry of Environmental Protection has reported that Climate change in Israel, climate change "will have a decisive impact on all areas of life", particularly for vulnerable populations.

Government and politics

Israel has a parliamentary system,

and universal suffrage. A member of parliament supported by a parliamentary majority becomes the

—usually this is the chair of the largest party. The prime minister is the head of government and of Cabinet of Israel, cabinet. The president of Israel, president is head of state, with largely ceremonial duties. Israel is governed by a 120-member parliament, known as the

. Membership of the Knesset is based on proportional representation of List of political parties in Israel, political parties, with a 3.25% electoral threshold, which in practice has resulted in coalition governments. Residents of Israeli settlements in the West Bank are eligible to vote, and after the 2015 Israeli legislative election, 2015 election 10 of the 120 members of the Knesset () were settlers. Parliamentary Elections in Israel, elections are scheduled every four years, but unstable coalitions or a motion of no confidence, no-confidence vote can dissolve a government earlier. The first Arab-led party was established in 1988, and as of 2022 Arab-led parties hold about 10% of seats. A party cannot run for election to the Knesset if its objectives or actions include the "negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people". The Basic Laws of Israel function as an uncodified constitution. These define Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and the nation-state of exclusively the Jewish people. In 2003, the Knesset began to draft an official Constitution of Israel, constitution based on these laws. Israel has no official religion, but the definition of the state as "Jewish and democratic" creates a strong connection with Judaism. On 19 July 2018, the Knesset passed a Basic Law that characterizes Israel as principally a "Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, Nation State of the Jewish People" and Hebrew as its official language. The bill ascribes an undefined "special status" to the Arabic language. The same bill gives Jews a unique right to national self-determination and views the developing of Jewish settlement in the country as "a national interest", empowering the government to "take steps to encourage, advance and implement this interest".

Administrative divisions

The State of Israel is divided into six main administrative districts, known as ''mehozot'' (; : ''mahoz'')—Central District (Israel), Center, Haifa District, Haifa, Jerusalem District, Jerusalem, Northern District (Israel), North, Southern District (Israel), South, and Tel Aviv District, Tel Aviv, as well as the Judea and Samaria Area in the West Bank. All of the Judea and Samaria Area and parts of the Jerusalem and Northern districts are not recognised internationally as part of Israel. Districts are divided into 15 sub-districts known as ''nafot'' (; : ''nafa''), which are partitioned into 50 natural regions. : Including 361,700 Arabs and 233,900 Jews in East Jerusalem, . : Israeli citizens only.

Israeli citizenship law

The 1950 Law of Return grants Jews the unrestricted Jus soli#Restricted jus soli, right to immigrate to Israel and obtain Israeli citizenship. Individuals born within the country receive Jus sanguinis, birthright citizenship if at least one parent is a citizen. Israeli law defines Jewish nationality as distinct from Israeli nationality, and the Supreme Court of Israel has ruled that an Israeli nationality does not exist. A Jewish national is defined as any person practicing Judaism and their descendants.

Israeli-occupied territories

In 1967, as a result of the Six-Day War, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Israel also captured the Sinai Peninsula but returned it to Egypt as part of the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty. Between 1982 and 2000, Israel occupied Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon, part of southern Lebanon, in what was known as the South Lebanon security belt administration, Security Belt. Since capture of these territories, Israeli settlements and military installations have been built within each of them, except Lebanon. The Golan Heights and East Jerusalem have been fully incorporated under Israeli law but not under international law. Israel has applied civilian law to both areas and granted their inhabitants permanent residency status and the ability to apply for citizenship. The UN Security Council has declared the annexation of the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem to be "null and void" and continues to view the territories as occupied. The status of East Jerusalem in any future peace settlement has at times been a difficult issue in negotiations between Israeli governments and representatives of the Palestinians. West_Bank_Fence_South_Hebron

The West Bank excluding East Jerusalem is known as the Judea and Samaria Area. The almost 400,000 Israeli settlers residing in the area are considered part of Israel's population, have Knesset representation, are subject to a Enclave law, large part of Israel's civil and criminal laws, and their output is considered part of Israel's economy.Gilead Sher
The Application of Israeli Law to the West Bank: De Facto Annexation?
INSS Insight No. 638, 4 December 2014 The land is not considered part of Israel under Israeli law, as Israel has consciously refrained from annexing the territory, without ever relinquishing its legal claim to the land or defining a border. Israeli political opposition to annexation primarily stems from the perceived "demographic threat" of incorporating the West Bank's Palestinian population into Israel. Outside of the Israeli settlements, the West Bank remains under direct Israeli military rule, and Palestinians in the area cannot become Israeli citizens. The international community maintains that Israel does not have sovereignty in the West Bank and considers Israel's control of the area to be the longest military occupation in modern history.See for example:
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Azarova, Valentina. 2017
Israel's Unlawfully Prolonged Occupation: Consequences under an Integrated Legal Framework
European Council on Foreign Affairs Policy Brief: "June 2017 marks 50 years of Israel's belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory, making it the longest occupation in modern history." The West Bank was occupied and annexed by Jordan in 1950, following the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Only Britain recognised this annexation, and Jordan has since Jordanian disengagement from the West Bank, ceded its claim to the territory to the PLO. The population is mainly Palestinians, including refugees of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. From their occupation in 1967 until 1993, the Palestinians living in these territories were under Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Israeli military administration. Since the Israel–Palestine Liberation Organization letters of recognition, Israel–PLO letters of recognition, most of the Palestinian population and List of cities administered by the State of Palestine, cities have been under the internal jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, and only partial Israeli military control, although Israel has redeployed its troops and reinstated full military administration during periods of unrest. Israel's claim of universal suffrage has been questioned due to its blurred territorial boundaries, its simultaneous extension of voting rights to Israeli settlers in the occupied territories and denial of voting rights to their Palestinian neighbours, as well as the alleged ethnocracy, ethnocratic nature of the state. The Gaza Strip is considered to be a "foreign territory" under Israeli law. Israel and Egypt operate a land, air, and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip was occupied by Israel after 1967. In 2005, as part of a Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, unilateral disengagement plan, Israel removed its settlers and forces from the territory but continues to maintain control of its airspace and waters. The international community, including numerous international humanitarian organisations and UN bodies, consider Gaza to remain occupied. Following the 2007 Battle of Gaza, when Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, Hamas assumed power in the Gaza Strip, Israel tightened control of the Gaza crossings along Gaza–Israel barrier, its border, as well as by sea and air, and prevented persons from entering and exiting except for isolated cases it deemed humanitarian. Gaza has a Egypt–Gaza border, border with Egypt, and an agreement between Israel, the EU, and the PA governs how border crossings take place. The application of democracy to its Palestinian citizens and the selective application of Israeli democracy in the Israeli-controlled Palestinian territories have been criticised.

International opinion

The International Court of Justice said, in its International law and the Arab–Israeli conflict#2004 advisory opinion of the ICJ, 2004 advisory opinion on the legality of the construction of the West Bank barrier, that the lands captured by Israel in the Six-Day War, including East Jerusalem, are occupied territory and found that the construction of the wall within the occupied Palestinian territory violates international law. Most negotiations relating to the territories have been on the basis of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, UN Security Council Resolution 242, which emphasises "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war", and calls on Israel to withdraw from occupied territories in return for normalisation of relations with Arab states ("Land for peace"). Israel has been criticised for engaging in systematic and widespread violations of Human rights in the Israeli-occupied territories, human rights in the occupied territories, including occupation and war crimes against civilians. The allegations include violations of international humanitarian law by the United Nations Human Rights Council, UN Human Rights Council. The U.S. State Department has called reports of Human rights violations against Palestinians by Israel, abuses of significant human rights of Palestinians "credible" both within Israel and the occupied territories. Amnesty International and other NGOs have documented mass arbitrary arrests, torture, unlawful killings, systemic abuses and impunity in tandem with a denial of the right to Palestinian self-determination. Prime Minister Netanyahu has defended the country's security forces for protecting the innocent from terrorists and expressed contempt for what he describes as a lack of concern about the human rights violations committed by "criminal killers". The international community widely regards Israeli settlements in the occupied territories international law and Israeli settlements, illegal under international law. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 (passed 2016) states that Israel's settlement activity constitutes a "flagrant violation" of international law and demands that Israel stop such activity and fulfill its obligations as an Military occupation#The occupying power, occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention. A United Nations special rapporteur concluded that the settlement programme was a war crime under the Rome Statute, and Amnesty International found that the settlement programme constitutes an illegal transfer of civilians into occupied territory and "pillage", which is prohibited by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, Hague Conventions and Geneva Conventions as well as being a war crime under the Rome Statute. In a International law and the Arab–Israeli conflict#2024 advisory opinion of the ICJ, 2024 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice stated that occupation of the Palestinian territories violated international law; Israel should end its occupation as quickly as possible and pay reparations. In addition, the court found that Israel was in breach of article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which requires states to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of racial segregation and apartheid.

Accusations of Apartheid

Treatment of Palestinians within the occupied territories and to a lesser extent in Israel itself have drawn widespread accusations that it is guilty of crime of apartheid, apartheid, a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute and the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. ''The Washington Posts 2021 survey of scholars and academic experts on the Middle East found an increase from 59% to 65% of these scholars describing Israel as a "one-state reality akin to apartheid". The claim that Israel's policies for Palestinians Palestinian citizens of Israel, within Israel or Israeli-occupied territories, within Israeli-occupied territories amount to apartheid has been affirmed by Israeli human rights organisation B'tselem, University Network for Human Rights, and international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din has also accused Israel of apartheid. Amnesty's claim was criticised by politicians and representatives from Israel and its closest allies such as, the US, the UK, the European Commission, Australia, Netherlands and Germany, while said accusations were welcomed by Palestinians and the Arab League. In 2022, Michael Lynk, a Canadian law professor United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council said that the situation met the legal definition of apartheid, and concluded: "Israel has imposed upon Palestine an apartheid reality in a post-apartheid world". Subsequent reports from his successor, Francesca Albanese and from Permanent United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Israel Palestine conflict chair Navi Pillay echoed the opinion. In February 2024, the ICJ case on Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, ICJ held public hearings in regards to the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem. During the hearings, 24 states and three international organisations said that Israeli practices amount to a breach of the prohibition of apartheid and/or amount to prohibited acts of racial discrimination. The International Court of Justice in its ICJ case on Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, 2024 advisory opinion found that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories constitutes systemic discrimination and is in breach of Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which prohibits racial segregation and apartheid. The opinion is silent as to whether the discrimination amounts to apartheid; individual judges were split on the question.

Foreign relations

Israel maintains diplomatic relations , the Holy See, Kosovo, the Cook Islands and Niue. It has 107 List of diplomatic missions of Israel, diplomatic missions; countries with which it has no diplomatic relations include most Muslim countries. Six out of 22 nations in the Arab League have normalised relations with Israel. Israel remains formally in a Israel–Syria relations, state of war with Syria, dating back uninterrupted to 1948. It has been in a similarly Israel–Lebanon relations, formal state of war with Lebanon since the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 2000, with the Israel–Lebanon border remaining unagreed by treaty. Despite the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, Israel is still widely considered an enemy country among Egyptians. Iran withdrew its recognition of Israel during the Islamic Revolution. Israeli citizens may not visit Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen without permission from the Ministry of Interior (Israel), Ministry of the Interior. As a result of the 2008–09 Gaza War, Mauritania, Qatar, Bolivia, and Venezuela suspended political and economic ties with Israel, though Bolivia renewed ties in 2019. The Israel–United States relations, United States and the Israel–Russia relations, Soviet Union were the first two countries to recognise the State of Israel, having declared recognition roughly simultaneously. Diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union were broken in 1967 following the Six-Day War and renewed in 1991. The United States regards Israel as its "most reliable partner in the Middle East", based on "common democratic values, religious affinities, and security interests". The US has provided $68 billion Israel–United States military relations, in military assistance and $32 billion in grants to Israel since 1967, under the Foreign Assistance Act (period beginning 1962), more than any other country for that period until 2003. Most surveyed Americans have held consistently favourable views of Israel. The United Kingdom is seen as having a "natural" Israel–United Kingdom relations, relationship with Israel because of the Mandate for Palestine. , Germany–Israel relations, Germany had paid 25 billion euros in Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany, reparations to Israel and individual Israeli Holocaust survivors. Israel Israel–European Union relations, is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy. Although Israel–Turkey relations, Turkey and Israel did not establish full diplomatic relations until 1991, Turkey has cooperated with the Jewish state since its recognition of Israel in 1949. Turkey's ties to other Muslim-majority nations in the region have at times resulted in pressure from Arab and Muslim states to temper its relationship with Israel. Relations took a downturn after the 2008–09 Gaza War and Israel's Gaza flotilla raid, raid of the Gaza flotilla. Relations between Greece–Israel relations, Greece and Israel have improved since 1995 after decline of Israeli–Turkish relations. The two countries have a defence cooperation agreement and in 2010, the Israeli Air Force hosted Greece's Hellenic Air Force in a joint exercise. The joint Cyprus-Israel oil and gas explorations centered on the Leviathan gas field are an important factor for Greece, given its Cyprus–Greece relations, strong links with Cyprus. Cooperation in the world's longest submarine power cable, the EuroAsia Interconnector, has strengthened Cyprus–Israel relations. Azerbaijan is one of the few majority Muslim countries to develop strategic and economic Azerbaijan–Israel relations, relations with Israel. Kazakhstan also has an economic and strategic partnership with Israel. India established full India–Israel relations, diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992 and has fostered a strong military, technological and cultural partnership with the country since then. India is the largest customer of the Israeli military equipment, and Israel is the second-largest military partner of India after Russia. Ethiopia–Israel relations, Ethiopia is Israel's main ally in Africa due to common political, religious and security interests.

Foreign aid

Israel has a history of providing emergency foreign aid and humanitarian response to disasters across the world. In 1955 Israel began its Israeli foreign aid, foreign aid programme in Burma and then shifted to Africa. Israel's humanitarian efforts officially began in 1957 with the establishment of Mashav, the Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation. In this early period, whilst Israel's aid represented only a small percentage of total aid to Africa, its programme was effective in creating goodwill; however, following the 1967 war relations soured. Israel's foreign aid programme subsequently shifted its focus to Latin America. Since the late 1970s Israel's foreign aid has gradually decreased, although in recent years Israel has tried to reestablish aid to Africa. There are additional Israeli humanitarian and emergency response groups that work with the government, including IsraAid, a joint programme run by Israeli organisations and North American Jewish groups, ZAKA, The Fast Israeli Rescue and Search Team, Israeli Flying Aid, Save a Child's Heart and Latet. Between 1985 and 2015, Israel sent 24 delegations of their search and rescue unit the Home Front Command to 22 countries. Currently Israeli foreign aid List of development aid country donors, ranks low among OECD nations, spending less than 0.1% of its Gross national income, GNI on development assistance. The country ranked 38th in the 2018 World Giving Index.

Military

The Israel Defense Forces, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces and is headed by its Chief of the General Staff (Israel), Chief of the General Staff, the ''Ramatkal'', subordinate to the Cabinet. The IDF consists of the GOC Army Headquarters, army, Israeli Air Force, air force and Israeli Navy, navy. It was founded during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War by consolidating paramilitary organisations—chiefly the Haganah. The IDF also draws upon the resources of the Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel), Military Intelligence Directorate (''Aman''). The IDF have been involved in several major wars and border conflicts, making it one of the most battle-trained armed forces in the world. Most Conscription in Israel, Israelis are conscripted at age 18. Men serve two years and eight months, and Women in the Israel Defense Forces, women serve two years. Following mandatory service, Israeli men join the reserve forces and usually do up to several weeks of Reserve duty (Israel), reserve duty every year until their forties. Most women are exempt from reserve duty. Arab citizens of Israel (except the Druze in Israel, Druze) and those engaged in full-time religious studies Exemption from military service in Israel, are exempt, although the Tal committee, exemption of yeshiva students has been a source of contention. An alternative for those who receive exemptions on various grounds is ''Sherut Leumi'', or national service, which involves a programme of service in social welfare frameworks. A small minority of Israeli Arabs also volunteer in the army. As a result of its conscription programme, the IDF maintains approximately 176,500 active troops and 465,000 reservists, giving Israel one of the world's highest List of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel, percentage of citizens with military training.#IISS2018, IISS 2018, pp. 339–340 The military relies heavily on high-tech Military equipment of Israel, weapons systems Defense industry of Israel, designed and manufactured in Israel as well as some foreign imports. The Arrow (Israeli missile), Arrow missile is one of the world's few operational anti-ballistic missile systems. The Python (missile), Python air-to-air missile series is often considered one of the most crucial weapons in its military history. Israel's Spike (missile), Spike missile is one of the most widely exported anti-tank guided missiles in the world. Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile air defence system gained worldwide acclaim after intercepting hundreds of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip. Since the

, Israel has developed a network of reconnaissance satellites. The ''Ofeq'' programme has made Israel Timeline of first orbital launches by country, one of seven countries capable of launching such satellites. Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons and per a 1993 report, chemical and biological Israel and weapons of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction. Israel has not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity towards its nuclear capabilities. The Israeli Navy's Dolphin-class submarine, Dolphin submarines are believed to be armed with nuclear missiles offering second strike, second-strike capability. Since the Gulf War in 1991, all homes in Israel are required to have a reinforced security room, Merkhav Mugan, impermeable to chemical and biological substances. Since Israel's establishment, military expenditure constituted a significant portion of the country's gross domestic product, with peak of 30.3% of GDP in 1975. In 2021, Israel ranked 15th in the world List of countries by military expenditures, by total military expenditure, with $24.3 billion, and 6th by defence spending as a percentage of GDP, with 5.2%. Since 1974, the United States has been a particularly notable contributor of Israel–United States military relations#Military aid and procurement, military aid. Under a memorandum of understanding signed in 2016, the U.S. is expected to provide the country with $3.8 billion per year, or around 20% of Israel's defence budget, from 2018 to 2028. Israel ranked 9th globally for Arms industry, arms exports in 2022. The majority of Israel's arms exports are unreported for security reasons. Israel is consistently rated low in the Global Peace Index, ranking 134th out of 163 nations in 2022.

Legal system

Israel has a Israeli judicial system, three-tier court system. At the lowest level are magistrate courts, situated in most cities across the country. Above them are district courts, serving as both appeal, appellate courts and trial court, courts of first instance; they are situated in five of Israel's six Districts of Israel, districts. The third and highest tier is the Supreme Court of Israel, Supreme Court, located in Jerusalem; it serves a dual role as the highest court of appeals and the High Court of Justice (Israel), High Court of Justice. In the latter role, the Supreme Court rules as a court of first instance, allowing both citizens and non-citizens to petition against the decisions of state authorities. The legal system combines three legal traditions: English law, English common law, civil law (legal system), civil law, and Halakha, Jewish law. It is based on the principle of ''stare decisis'' (precedent) and is an adversarial system. Court cases are decided by professional judges. Marriage in Israel, Marriage and divorce are under the jurisdiction of the religious courts: Beth din, Jewish, Sharia, Muslim, Druze, and Christian. The election of judges is carried out by a Judicial Selection Committee (Israel), selection committee chaired by the Ministry of Justice (Israel), justice minister (currently Yariv Levin). Israel's Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty seeks to defend Human rights in Israel, human rights and liberties in Israel. The United Nations Human Rights Council and Israeli human rights organisation Adalah (legal center), Adalah have highlighted that this law does not in fact contain a general provision for equality and non-discrimination. As a result of "Enclave law", large portions of Israeli civil law are applied to Israeli settlements and Israeli residents in the occupied territories.

Economy

Israel is considered the most advanced country in

and the Middle East in economic and industrial development. , the IMF estimated its GDP at 521.7 billion dollars and GDP per capita at 53.2 thousand (List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita, ranking 13th worldwide). It is the third richest country in Asia List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita, by nominal per capita income and has the highest average List of countries by wealth per adult, wealth per adult in the Middle East.''The Economist'' ranked Israel as the 4th most successful economy among the developed countries for 2022. It has the List of countries by number of billionaires, most billionaires in the Middle East and the 18th most in the world. In recent years Israel had one of the highest growth rates in the developed world. In 2010, it joined the OECD. The country is ranked 20th in the World Economic Forum's ''Global Competitiveness Report'' and 35th on the World Bank's Ease of doing business index, ''Ease of Doing Business'' index. Economic data covers the economic territory of Israel, including the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Despite limited natural resources, intensive development of the Agriculture in Israel, agricultural and industrial sectors over the past decades has made Israel largely self-sufficient in food production, apart from grains and beef. Imports, totaling $96.5 billion in 2020, include raw materials, military equipment, investment goods, rough diamonds, fuels, grain, and consumer goods. Leading exports include machinery, equipment, software, Diamond industry in Israel, cut diamonds, agricultural products, chemicals, textiles, and apparel; in 2020, exports reached $114 billion. The Bank of Israel holds $201 billion of foreign-exchange reserves, the 17th highest in the world. Since the 1970s, Israel has received Israel–United States military relations, military aid from the United States, as well as loan guarantees, which account for roughly half of Israel's external debt. Israel has List of countries by external debt, one of the lowest external debts in the developed world, and is a lender in terms of net external debt (Net international investment position, assets vs. liabilities abroad), which stood at a surplus of $69 billion. Israel has the second-largest number of startup companies after the United States and the third-largest number of List of Israeli companies quoted on the Nasdaq, NASDAQ-listed companies. It is the world leader for number of start-ups per capita and has been dubbed the "Start-up Nation, Start-Up Nation". Intel and Microsoft built their first overseas research and development facilities in Israel, and other high-tech multinational corporations have opened List of multinational companies with research and development centres in Israel, research and development centres in the country. The days which are allocated to working times are Sunday through Thursday (for a five-day workweek), or Friday (for a six-day workweek). In observance of ''Shabbat'', in places where Friday is a work day and the majority of population is Jewish, Friday is a "short day". Several proposals have been raised to adjust the work week with the majority of the world.

Science and technology

Israel's development of cutting-edge technologies in software, communications and the life sciences have Silicon Wadi, evoked comparisons with Silicon Valley. Israel is first in the world in List of countries by research and development spending, expenditure on research and development as a percentage of GDP. It is ranked 15th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024, and 5th in the 2019 Bloomberg Innovation Index. Israel has 140 scientists, technicians, and engineers per 10,000 employees, the highest number in the world and has produced six List of Israeli Nobel laureates, Nobel Prize-winning scientists, mostly in chemistry, since 2004 and has been frequently ranked as one of the countries with the highest ratios of scientific papers per capita. List of Israeli universities and colleges, Israeli universities are ranked among the top 50 world universities in computer science (Technion and Tel Aviv University), mathematics (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and chemistry (Weizmann Institute of Science). In 2012, Israel was ranked ninth in the world by the Futron's Space Competitiveness Index. The Israel Space Agency coordinates all space research programmes with scientific and commercial goals, and have designed and built at least 13 commercial, research and spy satellites. Some satellites are ranked among the world's most advanced space systems. Shavit 2, Shavit is a space launch vehicle produced by Israel to launch small satellites into low Earth orbit. It was first launched in 1988, making Israel the Timeline of first orbital launches by country, eighth nation to have a space launch capability. In 2003, Ilan Ramon became Israel's first astronaut, serving on the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, fatal mission of Space Shuttle Columbia, Space Shuttle ''Columbia''. The Water supply and sanitation in Israel, ongoing water shortage has spurred innovation in water conservation techniques, and a substantial Agricultural research in Israel, agricultural modernisation, drip irrigation, was invented in Israel. Israel is also at the technological forefront of desalination and water recycling. The Sorek desalination plant is the largest seawater reverse osmosis desalination facility in the world. By 2014, desalination programmes provided roughly 35% of the drinking water, and it is expected to supply 70% by 2050. , over 50 percent of the water for households, agriculture and industry is artificially produced. In 2011, Israel's water technology industry was worth around $2 billion per year with annual exports of products and services in the tens of millions of dollars. As a result of innovations in reverse osmosis technology, Israel is set to become a net Water export, exporter of water. Solar dish at Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center in Israel

Israel has embraced Solar power in Israel, solar energy; its engineers are on the cutting edge of solar energy technology, and its solar companies work on projects around the world. Over 90% of homes use solar energy for hot water, the highest per capita. According to government figures, the country saves 8% of its electricity consumption per year because of its solar energy use in heating. The high annual incident solar irradiance at its geographic latitude creates ideal conditions for what is an internationally renowned solar research and development industry in the Negev. Israel had a modern electric car infrastructure involving a countrywide network of charging stations; however, its electric car company Better Place (company), Better Place shut down in 2013.

Energy

Israel Natural gas in Israel, began producing natural gas from its own offshore gas fields in 2004. In 2009 Tamar gas field was discovered near the coast, and Leviathan gas field was discovered in 2010. The natural gas reserves in these two fields could make Israel energy-secure for more than 50 years. Commercial production of natural gas from the Tamar field began in 2013, with over 7.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) produced annually. Israel had 199 billion bcm of proven reserves of natural gas as of 2016. The Leviathan gas field started production in 2019. Ketura Sun is Israel's first commercial solar field. Built in 2011 by the Arava Power Company, the field will produce about 9 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, sparing the production of some 125,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide over 20 years.

Transport

Israel has of paved Roads in Israel, roads and 3 million motor vehicles. The List of countries by vehicles per capita, number of motor vehicles per 1,000 persons is 365, relatively low among developed countries. The country aims to have 30% of vehicles on its roads powered by electricity by 2030. Israel has 5,715 buses on scheduled routes, operated by several carriers, the largest and oldest of which is Egged (company), Egged, serving most of the country. Rail transport in Israel, Railways stretch across and are operated by government-owned Israel Railways. Following major investments beginning in the early to mid-1990s, the number of train passengers per year has grown from 2.5 million in 1990, to 53 million in 2015; railways transport 7.5 million tons of cargo per year. Israel is served by three international List of airports in Israel, airports: Ben Gurion Airport, the country's main hub for international air travel; Ramon Airport; and Haifa Airport. Ben Gurion handled over 21.1 million passengers in 2023. There are three main ports: the Port of Haifa, the oldest and largest; Port of Ashdod, Ashdod Port; and the Port of Eilat on the

Tourism

Tourism, especially religious tourism, is an important industry, with List of beaches in Israel, beaches, Archaeology of Israel, archaeological, other List of World Heritage Sites in Israel, historical and List of biblical places, biblical sites, and unique geography also drawing tourists. In 2017, a record 3.6 million tourists visited Israel, yielding a 25 percent growth since 2016 and contributed NIS 20 billion to the economy.

Real estate

Housing prices are listed in the top third of all countries, with an average of 150 salaries required to buy an apartment. As of 2022, there are about 2.7 million properties in Israel, with an annual increase of over 50,000. However, demand for housing exceeds supply, with a shortage of about 200,000 apartments as of 2021. As a result, by 2021 housing prices rose by 5.6%. In 2021, Israelis took a record of NIS 116.1 billion in mortgages, an increase of 50% from 2020.

Demographics

Israel has the largest Jewish population in the world and is the only country where Jews are the majority, and the only country in which Jews make up more than 2% of the total national population. April 2025, the population was an estimated 10,094,000. In 2022, the government recorded 73.6% of the population as Israeli Jews, Jews, 21.1% as Arab citizens of Israel, Arabs, and 5.3% as "Others" (non-Arab Christians and people who have no religion listed). Over the last decade, large numbers of migrant workers from Romania, Thailand, China, Africa, and South America have settled in Israel. Exact figures are unknown, as many of them are living in the country illegally, but estimates run from 166,000 to 203,000.Adriana Kemp, "Labour migration and racialisation: labour market mechanisms and labour migration control policies in Israel", ''Social Identities'' 10:2, 267–292, 2004 By June 2012, approximately 60,000 Illegal immigration from Africa to Israel, African migrants had entered Israel. About 93% of Israelis live in urban areas. 90% of Palestinian Israelis reside in 139 densely populated towns and villages concentrated in the Galilee, Triangle (Israel), Triangle and Negev regions, with the remaining 10% in mixed cities and neighbourhoods. The OECD in 2016 estimated the average life expectancy at 82.5 years, the List of countries by life expectancy, 6th-highest in the world. Israeli Arab life expectancy lags by 3 to 4 years and is higher than in most Arab and Muslim countries. The country has the highest Total fertility rate, fertility rate in the OECD and the only one which is above the replacement figure of 2.1. Retention of Israel's population since 1948 is about even or greater, when compared to other countries with mass immigration. Jewish emigration from Israel (called ''yerida''), primarily to the United States and Canada, is described by demographers as modest, but is often cited by Israeli government ministries as a major threat to Israel's future. Approximately 80% of Israeli Jews are Sabra (person), born in Israel, 14% are immigrants from Europe and the Americas, and 6% are immigrants from Asia and Africa. Jews from Europe and the former Soviet Union and their descendants born in Israel, including Ashkenazi Jews, constitute approximately 44% of Jewish Israelis. Jews from Arab and Muslim countries and their descendants, including both Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews, form most of the rest of the Jewish population. Jewish intermarriage rates run at over 35% and recent studies suggest that the percentage of Israelis descended from both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews increases by 0.5 percent yearly, with over 25% of schoolchildren now originating from both. Around 4% of Israelis (300,000), ethnically defined as "others", are Russian descendants of Jewish origin or family who are not Jewish according to rabbinical law, but were eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return. Israeli settlers beyond the Green Line number over 600,000 (≈10% of the Jewish Israeli population). , Population statistics for Israeli settlements in the West Bank, 399,300 Israelis lived in West Bank settlements, including those that predated the establishment of the State of Israel and which were re-established after the Six-Day War. Additionally there were more than 200,000 Jews living in East Jerusalem and 22,000 in the Golan Heights. Approximately 7,800 Israelis Population statistics for Israeli Gaza Strip settlements, lived in settlements in the Gaza Strip, known as Gush Katif, until they were evacuated by the government as part of its 2005 Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, disengagement plan. Israeli Arabs (including the Arab population of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) comprise 21.1% of the population or 1,995,000 people. In a 2017 poll, 40% of Arab citizens of Israel identified as "Arab in Israel" or "Arab citizen of Israel", 15% identified as "Palestinian", 8.9% as "Palestinian in Israel" or "Palestinian citizen of Israel", and 8.7% as "Arab"; a poll found that 60% of Israeli Arabs have a positive view of the state.

Major urban areas

Israel has four major metropolitan areas: Gush Dan (Tel Aviv metropolitan area; population 3,854,000), Jerusalem metropolitan area, Jerusalem (population 1,253,900), Haifa metropolitan area, Haifa (924,400), and Beersheba metropolitan area, Beersheba (377,100). The largest municipality, in population and area, is Jerusalem with residents in an area of . Statistics on Jerusalem include the population and area of East Jerusalem, the status of which is in international dispute. Tel Aviv and Haifa rank as Israel's next most populous cities, with populations of and , respectively. The (mainly Haredi) city of Bnei Brak is the most densely populated city in Israel and one of the List of cities proper by population density, 10 most densely populated cities in the world. Israel has 16 cities with populations over 100,000. there are 77 localities granted City council (Israel), "municipalities" (or "city") status by the Ministry of the Interior, List of Israeli settlements with city status in the West Bank, four of which are in the West Bank.

Language

The official language is

. Hebrew is the primary language of the state and is spoken daily by the majority of the population. Prior to 1948, Anti-Yiddish sentiment, opposition to Yiddish, the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews, was common among supporters of the Zionist movement, including the Yishuv, who sought to promote Revival of the Hebrew language, Hebrew's revival as a unifying national language. These sentiments were reflected in the early policies of the Israeli government, which largely banned Yiddish theatre and publications. Until 2018, Arabic language in Israel, Arabic was also an official language; in 2018 it was downgraded to having a "special status in the state". Arabic is spoken by the Arab minority, with Arabic and Hebrew taught in Arab schools. Arabic is studied in most Jewish schools and is often used on signage and in transport announcements. Due to mass immigration from the former Soviet Union and Aliyah from Ethiopia, Ethiopia (some 130,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel, Ethiopian Jews live in Israel),Israel Central Bureau of Statistics
The Ethiopian Community in Israel
/ref> Russian language in Israel, Russian and Amharic are widely spoken. Over one million Russian-speaking immigrants arrived in Israel between 1990 and 2004. French is spoken by around 700,000 Israelis, mostly originating French Jews in Israel, from France and North Africa (see Maghrebi Jews). English was an official language during the Mandate period; it lost this status after the establishment of Israel, but retains a role comparable to that of an official language. Many Israelis communicate reasonably well in English, as many television programmes are broadcast in English with subtitles and the language is taught in elementary school. Israeli universities offer courses in English.

Religion

The estimated religious affiliation as of 2022 was 73.5% Jewish, 18.1% Muslims, Muslim, 1.9% Christians, Christian, 1.6% Druze, and 4.9% other. The Jewish religious movements, religious affiliation of Israeli Jews varies widely: a 2016 survey by Pew Research indicates that 49% self-identify as Hiloni (secular), 29% as Masortim, Masorti (traditional), 13% as Dati (religious) and 9% as Haredi Judaism, Haredi (ultra-Orthodox). Haredi Jews are expected to represent over 20% of the Jewish population by 2028. Islam in Israel, Muslims constitute the largest religious minority, making up about 18.1% of the population. About 1.9% of the population is Christianity in Israel, Christian, and 1.6% is Druze in Israel, Druze. The Christian population comprises primarily Arab Christians and Arameans in Israel, Aramean Christians but also includes post-Soviet immigrants, foreign labourers, Armenians in Israel and Palestine, Armenian Christians, and followers of Messianic Judaism, considered by most Christians and Jews to be a form of Christianity. Members of many other religious groups, including Buddhism, Buddhists and Hinduism in Israel, Hindus, maintain a presence in Israel, albeit in small numbers. Out of over one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union, about 300,000 are considered not Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Israel comprises a major part of the

, a region of significant importance to all Abrahamic religions. Jerusalem is of Religious significance of Jerusalem, special importance to Jews, Muslims, and Christians, as it is the home of List of places in Jerusalem, sites that are pivotal to their religious beliefs, such as the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City that incorporates the Western Wall and the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa Mosque compound) and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Other locations of religious importance are Nazareth (site of the Annunciation of Mary (mother of Jesus), Mary),

and

(two of the

in Judaism), the White Mosque, Ramla, White Mosque in Ramla (shrine of the prophet Salih, Saleh), and the Church of Saint George and Mosque of Al-Khadr, Lod (tomb of Saint George or Al Khidr). A number of other religious landmarks are located in the

, including Joseph's Tomb, the Church of the Nativity, birthplace of Jesus, Rachel's Tomb, and the Cave of the Patriarchs. The Arc (Baháʼí), administrative center of the Baháʼí Faith and the Shrine of the Báb are located at the Baháʼí World Centre in Haifa; the leader of the faith is Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, buried in Acre, Israel, Acre. The Mahmood Mosque, Haifa, Mahmood Mosque is affiliated with the reformist Ahmadiyya in Israel, Ahmadiyya movement. Kababir, Haifa's mixed neighbourhood of Jews and Ahmadi Arabs, is one of a few of its kind in the country.

Education

In 2015, Israel List of countries by tertiary education attainment, ranked third among OECD members for the percentage of 25–64-year-olds that have attained tertiary education with 49% compared with the OECD average of 35%. In 2012, the country ranked third in the number of academic degrees per capita (20 percent of the population). Israel has a school life expectancy of 16 years and a List of countries by literacy rate, literacy rate of 97.8%. The State Education Law (1953) established five types of schools: state secular, state religious, ultra orthodox, communal settlement schools, and Arab schools. The public secular is the largest school group and is attended by the majority of Jewish and non-Arab pupils. Most Arabs send their children to schools where Arabic is the language of instruction. Education is compulsory for children between the ages of three and eighteen. Schooling is divided into three tiers—primary school (grades 1–6), middle school (grades 7–9), and high school (grades 10–12)—culminating with ''Bagrut'' matriculation exams. Proficiency in core subjects such as mathematics, the Hebrew language, Hebrew and general literature, the English language, history, Biblical scripture and civics is necessary to receive a Bagrut certificate. The Jewish population maintains a relatively high level of educational attainment where just under half of all Israeli Jews (46%) hold post-secondary degrees. Israeli Jews 25 and older have an average 11.6 years of schooling, making them one of the most highly educated of all major religious groups in the world. In Arab, Christian and Druze schools, the exam on Biblical studies is replaced by an exam on Muslim, Christian or Druze heritage, respectively. In 2020, 68.7% of 12th graders earned a matriculation certificate. MountScopusDec032022 03

Israel has a tradition of higher education where its university education has been largely responsible in spurring modern economic development. Israel has List of Israeli universities and colleges, nine public universities subsidised by the state and 49 private colleges. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem houses the National Library of Israel, the world's largest repository of Judaica and Hebraica. The Technion and the Hebrew University consistently ranked among world's 100 top universities by Academic Ranking of World Universities, ARWU ranking. Other major universities include the Weizmann Institute of Science, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Bar-Ilan University, the University of Haifa, and the Open University of Israel.

Culture

Cultural diversity stems from its diverse population: Jews from various diaspora communities brought their cultural and religious traditions with them. Arab citizens of Israel#Culture, Arab influences are present in many cultural spheres, being found in Architecture of Israel, architecture, Music of Israel, music, and Israeli cuisine, cuisine. Israel is the only country where life revolves around the Hebrew calendar. Public holidays in Israel, Holidays are determined by the Jewish holidays. The official day of rest is Saturday, the Shabbat, Jewish Sabbath.

Literature

Israeli literature is primarily Modern Hebrew poetry, poetry and prose written in Hebrew, as part of the Revival of the Hebrew language, renaissance of Hebrew as a spoken language since the mid-19th century, although a small body of literature is published in other languages. By law, two copies of all works published in Israel must be deposited in the National Library of Israel. In 2016, 89 percent of the 7,300 books transferred to the library were in Hebrew. In 1966, Shmuel Yosef Agnon shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with German Jewish author Nelly Sachs. Leading poets include Yehuda Amichai, Nathan Alterman, Leah Goldberg, and Rachel Bluwstein. Internationally famous contemporary novelists include Amos Oz, Etgar Keret and David Grossman.

Music and dance

Music of Israel, Israeli music includes Mizrahi music, Mizrahi and Sephardic music, Hasidic Judaism, Hasidic melodies, Greek music in Israel, Greek music, jazz, and pop rock. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra has been in operation for over seventy years and performs more than two hundred concerts each year. Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Ofra Haza are among the internationally acclaimed musicians born in Israel. Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest, Israel has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest nearly every year since 1973, winning the competition four times and hosting it twice. Eilat has hosted its own international music festival, the Red Sea Jazz Festival, every summer since 1987. The nation's canonical folk music, folk songs are known as "Songs of the Land of Israel".

Cinema and theatre

Ten Israeli films List of Israeli submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, have been final nominees for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. Palestinian Israeli filmmakers have made films dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict and status of Palestinians within Israel, such as Mohammed Bakri's 2002 film ''Jenin, Jenin'' and ''The Syrian Bride''. Continuing the strong theatrical traditions of the Yiddish theatre in Eastern Europe, Israel maintains a vibrant theatre scene. Founded in 1918, Habima Theatre in Tel Aviv is Israel's oldest repertory theater company and national theater. Other theatres include Ohel Theater, Ohel, Cameri Theatre, the Cameri and Gesher Theater, Gesher.

Arts

Israeli Jewish art has been particularly influenced by the Kabbalah, the Talmud and the Zohar. Another art movement that held a prominent role in the 20th century was the School of Paris. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the Yishuv's art was dominated by art trends emanating Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Bezalel. Beginning in the 1920s, the local art scene was heavily influenced by modern French art, first introduced by Yitzhak Frenkel, Isaac Frenkel Frenel. Jewish masters of the school of Paris, such as Chaïm Soutine, Soutine, Michel Kikoine, Kikoine, Yitzhak Frenkel, Frenkel, Marc Chagall, Chagall heavily influenced the subsequent development of Israeli art. Israeli sculpture took inspiration from modern Art of Europe, European sculpture as well Art of Mesopotamia, Mesopotamian, Assyrian sculpture, Assyrian and local art. Avraham Melnikov's roaring lion, David Polus' Alexander Zaid and Zeev Ben-Zvi, Ze'ev Ben Zvi's cubist sculpture exemplify some of the different streams in sculpture. Common themes in art are the mystical cities of Safed and Jerusalem, the bohemian café culture of Tel Aviv, agricultural landscapes, biblical stories and war. Today Israeli art has delved into optical art, Artificial intelligence art, AI art, digital art and the use of salt in sculpture.

Architecture

Due to the immigration of Jewish architects, architecture has come to reflect different styles. In the early 20th century Jewish architects sought to combine Occidental and Oriental architecture producing buildings that showcase a myriad of infused styles. The Eclecticism in architecture, eclectic style gave way to the modernist Bauhaus style with the influx of German Jewish architects (among them Erich Mendelsohn) fleeing Nazi persecution of Jews, Nazi persecution. The White City, Tel Aviv, White City of Tel Aviv is a UNESCO Heritage site, UNESCO heritage site. Following independence, multiple government projects were commissioned, a grand part built in a brutalist style with heavy emphasis on the use of concrete and acclimatisation to the desert climate. Several novel ideas such as the Garden city movement, Garden City were implemented in Israeli cities; the Geddes Plan for Tel Aviv, Geddes plan of Tel Aviv became renowned internationally for its revolutionary design and adaptation to the local climate. The design of kibbutzim also came to reflect ideology, such as the planning of the circular kibbutz Nahalal by Richard Kauffmann.

Media

Media is diverse, reflecting the spectrum of audiences. Notable newspapers include the leftwing ''Haaretz'', centrist ''Yedioth Ahronoth'', and center-right ''Israel Hayom''. There are several major TV channels which cater to different audiences, from Russian-language Israel Plus, Channel 9 to Arabic-language Kan 33. The 2024 Freedom House report found Israeli media is "vibrant and free to criticise government policy". In the 2024 Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, Israel was placed 101st of 180 countries, second in the Middle East and North Africa. Reporters Without Borders noted that the Israel Defence Forces had killed more than 100 journalists in Gaza. Since the Gaza war, Israel had been "been trying to suppress the reporting coming out of the besieged enclave while disinformation infiltrates its own media ecosystem". In May 2024, Israel shut down the local offices of Al Jazeera. In 2024, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Israel was the second leading country in the world in jailing journalists, while being responsible for the majority of journalists killed in the world.

Museums

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem is one of Israel's most important cultural institutions and houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with an extensive collection of Judaica and European art. The Yad Vashem is the world central archive of Holocaust-related information. ANU - Museum of the Jewish People is an interactive museum devoted to the history of Jewish communities around the world. Israel has the highest number of museums per capita. Several museums are devoted to Islamic culture, including the Rockefeller Museum and the L. A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art, both in Jerusalem. The Rockefeller specialises in archaeological remains from Middle East history. It is also the home of the first hominid fossil skull found in West Asia, called Galilee Man.

Cuisine

Israeli cuisine includes local dishes as well as Jewish cuisine brought to the country by immigrants. Particularly since the late 1970s, a fusion cuisine has developed. The cuisine has adapted elements of the Mizrahi Jewish cuisine, Mizrahi, Sephardic Jewish cuisine, Sephardi, and Ashkenazi cuisine, Ashkenazi styles of cooking. It incorporates many foods traditionally eaten in the Levantine cuisine, Levantine, Arab cuisine, Arab, Middle Eastern cuisine, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine, Mediterranean cuisines, such as falafel, hummus, shakshouka, couscous, and za'atar. Schnitzel, pizza, hamburgers, French fries, rice and salad are common. Roughly half of the Jewish population attests to keeping kosher at home. Kosher restaurants make up around a quarter of the total .Yael Raviv
''Falafel Nation,''
University of Nebraska Press, 2015 Pork—often called "white meat" in Israel—is produced and consumed despite attempts to ban it; Religious restrictions on the consumption of pork, it is forbidden by both Judaism and Islam but is permitted by Christianity and mostly produced in traditionally Christian areas of northern Israel. Other non-kosher foods produced and eaten in Israel include rabbits, ostriches, and non-kosher fish.

Sports

The most popular spectator sports in Israel are association football and basketball. The Israeli Premier League is the country's premier football league, and the Israeli Basketball Premier League is the premier basketball league. Maccabi Haifa F.C., Maccabi Haifa, Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C., Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv F.C., Hapoel Tel Aviv and Beitar Jerusalem F.C., Beitar Jerusalem are the largest List of football clubs in Israel, football clubs. Maccabi Tel Aviv, Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel Tel Aviv have competed in the UEFA Champions League and Hapoel Tel Aviv reached the UEFA Cup quarter-finals. Israel hosted and won the 1964 AFC Asian Cup; in 1970 the Israel national football team qualified for the 1970 FIFA World Cup, FIFA World Cup, the only time it participated. The 1974 Asian Games, held in Tehran, were the last Asian Games in which Israel Israel at the Asian Games, participated, plagued by Arab countries that Boycotts of Israel in sports, refused to compete with Israel. Israel was excluded from the 1978 Asian Games and since then has not competed in Asian sport events. In 1994, UEFA agreed to admit Israel, and its football teams now compete in Europe. Maccabi Tel Aviv B.C. has won the FIBA European Champions Cup and EuroLeague records and statistics, European championship in basketball six times. Israel has won Israel at the Olympics, 20 Olympic medals since its first win 1992 Summer Olympics, in 1992, including a gold medal in Sailing at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's Mistral One Design, windsurfing at the 2004 Summer Olympics, and seven medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics alone. Israel has won Israel at the Paralympics, over 100 gold medals in the Paralympic Games and is ranked 20th in the All-time Paralympic Games medal table, all-time medal count. The 1968 Summer Paralympics were hosted by Israel. The Maccabiah Games, an Olympic-style event for List of Jews in sports, Jewish and Israeli athletes, was inaugurated in the 1930s, and has been held every four years since. Krav Maga, a martial art developed by Jewish ghetto defenders, is used by the Israeli security forces and police. Chess is a leading sport. There are many Israeli grandmasters and List of Israeli chess players, Israeli chess players have won a number of youth world championships. Israel stages an annual international Israeli Chess Championship, championship and hosted the World Team Chess Championship in 2005.

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

* of the Prime Minister's Office (Israel), Israel Prime Minister's Office * of the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics
The Israel Collection
at the National Library of Israel
Israel
at BBC News Online
Israel
at the OECD * * * {{coord, 31, N, 35, E, region:IL_type:country, display=title Israel, Articles containing video clips Countries and territories where Arabic is an official language Countries in Asia Eastern Mediterranean Jewish polities Levant Member states of the Union for the Mediterranean Member states of the United Nations Political entities in the Land of Israel Republics States and territories established in 1948 States with limited recognition West Asian countries

Etymology

History

Prehistory

Bronze and Iron Ages

Classical antiquity

Late antiquity and the medieval period

Modern period and the emergence of Zionism

British Mandate for Palestine

State of Israel

Independence and early years

Arab–Israeli conflict

Peace process

21st century

Geography

Tectonics and seismicity

Climate

Government and politics

Administrative divisions

Israeli citizenship law

Israeli-occupied territories

International opinion

Accusations of Apartheid

Foreign relations

Foreign aid

Military

Legal system

Economy

Science and technology

Energy

Transport

Tourism

Real estate

Demographics

Major urban areas

Language

Religion

Education

Culture

Literature

Music and dance

Cinema and theatre

Arts

Architecture

Media

Museums

Cuisine

Sports

See also

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

External links