Israel

The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically been used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel and the entire Jewish people respectively. The name Israel (Hebrew: Yīsrāʾēl; Septuagint Ancient Greek: Ἰσραήλ, Israēl, "El (God) persists/rules") refers to the patriarch Jacob who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was given the name after he successfully wrestled with the Angel of the Lord. The earliest known archaeological artefact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt (dated to the late-13th century BCE).

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 (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, [mediˈnat jisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]) after other proposed names including Land of Israel (Eretz Israel), Ever (from ancestor Eber), Zion, and Judea, were considered but rejected. The name Israel was suggested by David Ben-Gurion 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.

=== Prehistory ===

The Ubeidiya prehistoric site in northern Israel shows the presence of archaic humans around 1.5 million years ago. The second-oldest evidence of anatomically modern humans outside Africa is a 200,000-year-old fossil from Misliya Cave on Mount Carmel. The Natufian culture (c. 10,000 BCE) may be linked to the Proto-Afroasiatic language and is notable for adopting sedentism before the advent of agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution.

Early references to "Canaan" and "Canaanites" appear in ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian texts (c. 2000 BCE); these populations were structured as politically independent city-states. During the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), large parts of Canaan formed vassal states of the New Kingdom of Egypt. As a result of the Late Bronze Age collapse, Canaan fell into chaos, and Egyptian control over the region collapsed. Ancestors of the Israelites are thought to have included ancient Semitic-speaking peoples native to this area. Modern archaeological accounts suggest that the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples through the settlement of the central highlands and the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh. They spoke an archaic form of Hebrew, known as Biblical Hebrew. Around the same time, the Philistines settled on the southern coastal plain.

Most modern scholars agree that the Exodus narrative in the Torah and Old Testament 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, historians and archaeologists agree that the northern Kingdom of Israel existed by ca. 900 BCE and the Kingdom of Judah by ca. 850 BCE. The Kingdom of Israel was the more prosperous of the two and soon developed into a regional power, with a capital at Samaria; during the Omride dynasty, it controlled Samaria, Galilee, 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 Kingdom of Judah, under Davidic rule with its capital in Jerusalem, later became a client state of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire and then the Neo-Babylonian Empire. It is estimated that the region's population was around 400,000 in the Iron Age II. In 587/6 BCE, following a revolt in Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple, dissolved the kingdom and exiled much of the Judean elite to Babylon.

After capturing Babylon in 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire, issued a proclamation allowing the exiled Judean population to return. The construction of the Second Temple was completed c. 520 BCE. The Achaemenids ruled the region as the province of Yehud Medinata. In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered the region as part of his campaign against the Achaemenid Empire. After his death, the area was controlled by the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires as a part of Coele-Syria. Under the Hellenistic kingdoms, ongoing Hellenisation generated cultural tensions among the Jewish population that culminated under Antiochus IV, whose decrees outlawed Jewish practices and triggered the Maccabean Revolt in 167 BCE. The revolt weakened Seleucid control over Judea; by 142/141 BCE the Hasmoneans had secured autonomy and soon established an independent Jewish kingdom that, in the late 2nd–early 1st century BCE, expanded into neighbouring territories. The Hasmonean civil war ended with the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE.

In 37 BCE, Herod the Great was installed as a dynastic vassal of Rome following the Roman–Parthian Wars. In 6 CE, the area was annexed as the Roman province of Judaea; tensions with Roman rule led to a series of Jewish–Roman wars, resulting in widespread destruction. The First Jewish–Roman War (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 (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 (Aelia Capitolina), and the province of Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina. Jews were expelled from the districts surrounding Jerusalem. Nevertheless, there was a continuous small Jewish presence, and Galilee became its religious center.

During the Byzantine period, Early Christianity displaced Roman paganism in the 4th century CE, with Constantine embracing and promoting the Christian religion and Theodosius I 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 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 and the short-lived Jewish revolt against Heraclius in 614 CE, the Byzantine Empire reconsolidated control of the area in 628.

In 634–641 CE, the Rashidun Caliphate conquered the Levant. Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634–644) lifted the Christian ban on Jews entering Jerusalem and permitted them to worship there. Over the next six centuries, control of the region transferred between the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates, and subsequently the Seljuk and Ayyubid 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, and there was steady Arabisation and Islamisation. The end of the 11th century brought the Crusades, papally-sanctioned incursions of Christian crusaders intent on wresting Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim control and establishing crusader states. The Ayyubids pushed back the crusaders before Muslim rule was fully restored by the Mamluk sultans of Egypt in 1291.

In 1516, the Ottoman Empire conquered the region and ruled it as part of Ottoman Syria. Two violent incidents took place against Jews, the 1517 Safed attacks and the 1517 Hebron attacks, after the Turkish Ottomans ousted the Mamluks 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 invited Sephardic Jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition to settle in and rebuild the city of Tiberias.

Under the Ottoman Empire's millet system, Christians and Jews were considered dhimmi ("protected") under Ottoman law in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax. Non-Muslim Ottoman subjects faced geographic and lifestyle restrictions, though these were not always enforced. The millet system organised non-Muslims into autonomous communities on the basis of religion.

The concept of an eventual return to Zion remained a symbol within religious Jewish belief which emphasised that their return should be determined by Divine Providence rather than human action. The Jewish population of Palestine from the Ottoman rule to the beginning of the Zionist movement, known as the Old Yishuv, comprised a minority and fluctuated in size. During the 16th century, Jewish communities struck roots in the Four Holy Cities—Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron, and Safed—and in 1697, Rabbi Yehuda Hachasid led 1,500 Jews to Jerusalem. A 1660 Druze revolt against the Ottomans destroyed Safed and Tiberias. In the second half of the 18th century, Eastern European Jews who were opponents of Hasidism, known as the Perushim, settled in Palestine.

In the late 18th century, local Arab Sheikh Daher al-Umar created a de facto independent emirate in the Galilee. Ottoman attempts to subdue the sheikh failed. After Daher's death the Ottomans regained control of the area. In 1799, governor Jazzar Pasha repelled an assault on Acre by Napoleon'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 was suppressed; Muhammad Ali's army retreated and Ottoman rule was restored with British support in 1840. The Tanzimat reforms were implemented across the Ottoman Empire.

The first wave of modern Jewish migration to Ottoman-ruled Palestine, known as the First Aliyah, began in 1881, as Jews fled pogroms in Eastern Europe. The 1882 May Laws increased economic discrimination against Jews, and restricted where they could live. 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. Zionism emerged during this time as a political movement to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The revival of the Hebrew language, during which Hebrew was adapted for modern use and gradually became the primary language of Jews in Palestine, also began.

The Second Aliyah (1904–1914) began after the Kishinev pogrom; some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine, although nearly half left eventually. Both the first and second waves of migrants were mainly Orthodox Jews. The Second Aliyah included Zionist socialist groups who established the kibbutz 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 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, Tel Aviv was established as the first planned Jewish town in 1909. Jewish armed militias emerged during this period, the first being Bar-Giora in 1907; two years later, the larger Hashomer organisation was founded as its replacement.

Chaim Weizmann's efforts to garner British support for the Zionist movement secured the Balfour Declaration of 1917, stating Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. Balfour was aware of the developing principle of self-determination and its implications for Palestine. In a letter to a leader of the Zionist movement in the US, he wrote:

The Powers had committed themselves to the Zionist programme which inevitably excluded numerical self-determination. Palestine presented a unique situation. We are dealing not with the wishes of an existing community but are consciously seeking to reconstitute a new community and definitely building for a numerical majority in the future.

Weizmann's interpretation of the declaration was that negotiations on the future of the country were to happen between Britain and the Jews, excluding Arabs. Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine deteriorated dramatically.

In 1918, the Jewish Legion 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 Mandatory Palestine. Western powers finalized the partition at the San Remo conference, they did so against local opinion. Previously in 1919, the US-led King–Crane Commission, the only comprehensive social survey of the era, had found overwhelming local opposition to the Zionist project and European mandatory rule. The Arab opposition to British rule and Jewish immigration led to the 1920 Nebi Musa riots and formation of a Jewish militia known as the Haganah as an outgrowth of Hashomer, from which the Irgun and Lehi paramilitaries later split. In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine 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 11% and Arab Christians about 10%.

The Third (1919–23) and Fourth Aliyahs (1924–29) brought an additional 100,000 Jews to Palestine. Following the 1929 Palestine riots, the Hope Simpson Enquiry documented that land purchases by the Jewish National Fund and other Zionist organizations had led to the eviction of Arab tenant farmers and created an economically disenfranchised class of landless Arabs. Hope Simpson made recommendations including limiting Jewish immigration based on the absorptive capacity of Palestine.

The rise of Nazism and increasing persecution of Jews in 1930s Europe led to the Fifth Aliyah, with an influx of 250,000 Jews. This was a cause of the 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. 10% of Palestinian Arab men were killed, wounded, imprisoned, or exiled.

In the 1930s, Britain began considering proposals to partition Palestine. Although some Zionists opposed partition, David Ben-Gurion supported it while regarding it as a temporary arrangement. In summer 1938, he stated that, after the establishment of the state and formation of a large army, they would "abolish partition" and "expand to the whole of Palestine".

The British introduced restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine with the White Paper of 1939. With countries turning away Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, a clandestine movement known as Aliyah Bet was organised to bring Jews to Palestine. During World War II, Palestine was repeatedly bombed by Axis aircraft, causing casualties among Jews and Arabs. About 30,000 Jews from Palestine served in the British military during the war, of whom around 700 were killed. 12,000 Palestinian Arabs served in the British military. At the end of the war, 31% of the population of Palestine was Jewish. The UK faced a Jewish insurgency over immigration restrictions from 1944, which intensified after the war, 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 ships were intercepted by the Royal Navy and the refugees placed in detention camps in Atlit and Cyprus. The insurgency included bombings and other attacks by Jewish insurgent organisations, including attacks that killed civilians as well as British security personnel and officials.

In July 1946, Irgun bombed the British administrative headquarters for Palestine in the King David Hotel, killing 91. The attack was intended to destroy documents that Irgun believed implicated the Jewish Agency in attacks against the British during Operation Agatha, a series of raids, including one on the Jewish Agency. 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 were unsuccessful 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. The Arabs were adamant that a Jewish state in any part of Palestine was unacceptable and the only solution was a unified Palestine under Arab rule. In February 1947, the British referred the Palestine issue to the United Nations. On 15 May 1947, the UN General Assembly resolved that a Special Committee be created "to prepare ... a report on the question of Palestine". The Report of the Committee 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 peaked in July 1947, with a series of 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 British soldiers, hanged their bodies from trees, and left a booby trap which injured a British soldier. The incident caused outrage in the UK. 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 Resolution 181 (II), which recommended partition of Mandatory Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem being under an international regime. The plan attached to the resolution was that proposed in the report of 3 September, which had allocated the larger share of territory (55%) to The Jewish Agency, the recognised representative of the Jewish community, despite the fact the Jewish population was a third of the population, most of whom were recent immigrants, and owned about 7% of the land. Arabs constituted the majority population and owned about 20% of the land, with the remainder held by the Mandate authorities or foreign landowners. The Jewish leadership accepted the plan but the Arab leadership rejected it.

The Arab League and Arab Higher Committee of Palestine responded that the plan privileged European interests over Palestinians, and they would "refuse to be bound" by any resolution to divide the country. They argued the resolution was contrary to self-determination and Arabs constituted the majority of its "lawful inhabitants", who had consistently expressed their desire for their country to "remain united and undivided". In December 1947, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a strike, and riots broke out in Jerusalem. The situation spiralled into a civil war. Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones announced that the British Mandate would end in May 1948: the British would evacuate. As Arab militias and gangs attacked Jewish areas, they were faced by the Haganah, and the smaller Irgun and Lehi. In April 1948, the Haganah moved onto the offensive, a phase that included the Deir Yassin massacre, in which Irgun and Lehi forces attacked the Arab village of Deir Yassin, killing more than 100 villagers, including women and children.

On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion, 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 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 ceasefire was declared and temporary borders established, known as the Green Line. Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip. 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled by Zionist militias and the Israeli military—what would become known in Arabic as the Nakba ('catastrophe'). The events led to the destruction of most of Palestine's Arab culture, identity, and national aspirations. 156,000 Arabs remained and became Arab citizens of Israel.

By United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted to the UN in May 1949. In the early years of the state, the Labour Zionist movement led by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics. Immigration during the late 1940s and early 1950s was aided by the Israeli Immigration Department and the non-government sponsored Mossad LeAliyah Bet (lit. "Institute for 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 difficult. 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 escaped persecution or were expelled from their homes.

An influx of Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab and Muslim countries 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 1948-1970, approximately 1,150,000 Jewish refugees relocated to Israel. Some immigrants arrived as refugees and were housed in camps known as ma'abarot; by 1952, 200,000 people lived in these tent cities. Jews of European background were often treated more favourably than Jews from Middle Eastern and 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. Food, clothes and furniture were rationed in this austerity period. The need to solve the crisis led Ben-Gurion to sign a reparations agreement with West Germany that triggered protests by Jews angered that Israel could accept monetary compensation for the Holocaust.

There were further expulsions of Palestinians after the establishment of Israel. During the 1950s, Israel was frequently attacked by Palestinian fedayeen, nearly always against civilians, mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip, leading to Israeli reprisal operations. In 1956, the UK and France aimed to regain control of the Suez Canal, which Egypt had nationalised. The blockade of the Canal and Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, together with fedayeen attacks against Israel's southern population and Arab threatening statements, prompted Israel to attack Egypt. Israel joined 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 reduction of Israeli border infiltration.

In the early 1960s, Israel captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to Israel 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 US concerning the Israeli nuclear programme.

Since 1964, Arab countries, concerned over Israeli plans to divert waters of the Jordan River into the coastal plain, had tried to divert the headwaters to deprive Israel of water resources, 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 between Israeli and Arab forces.

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

In the ensuing Six-Day War, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israeli forces expelled ~300,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem. The 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories.

Following the 1967 war and the "Three Nos" resolution of the Arab League, Israel faced attacks from the Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula during the 1967–70 War of Attrition, and from Palestinian groups targeting Israelis in the occupied territories, globally, and in Israel. Most important among the groups was the 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 groups launched attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world, including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Israel responded with an assassination campaign against the organisers of the massacre, a bombing and a raid on the PLO headquarters in Lebanon.

On 6 October 1973, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, opening the Yom Kippur War. The war ended on 25 October with Israel repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but suffering losses. An internal inquiry exonerated the government of responsibility for failures before and during the war, but public anger forced Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign. In June 1976, Air France Flight 139 from Israel to France was hijacked by Palestinian guerrillas; Israeli commandos rescued 102 of 106 Israeli hostages.

The 1977 Knesset elections marked a turning point in Israeli history as Menachem Begin's Likud party took control from the Labor Party. Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat made a trip to Israel and spoke before the Knesset 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 entered negotiations over autonomy for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In March 1978, a PLO raid from Lebanon led to the Coastal Road massacre. Israel responded by launching an invasion of southern Lebanon to destroy PLO bases. Begin's government meanwhile provided incentives for Israelis to settle in the 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 reignited international controversy over the status of the city. No Israeli legislation has defined the territory of Israel, and no act specifically included East Jerusalem therein. In 1981 Israel effectively annexed the Golan Heights. The international community rejected these moves, with the UN Security Council declaring the Jerusalem Law and Golan Heights Law void. Waves of Ethiopian Jews immigrated to Israel from the 1980s onwards, while between 1990-94, immigration from the post-Soviet states increased Israel's population by twelve per cent.

On 7 June 1981, during the Iran–Iraq War, Israel's air force destroyed Iraq's sole nuclear reactor, then under construction, to impede Iraq's nuclear weapons programme. Following PLO attacks in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to destroy the PLO bases. Israel destroyed the military forces of the PLO in Lebanon and defeated the Syrians. An Israeli inquiry (the Kahan Commission) held Begin and several Israeli generals indirectly responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre and held defence minister Ariel Sharon as bearing "personal responsibility". Sharon was forced to resign.

In 1985, Israel responded to a Palestinian terrorist attack in Cyprus by bombing PLO's headquarters in Tunisia. Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986 but continued to occupy a borderland buffer zone in southern Lebanon until 2000, from where Israeli forces engaged in conflict with Hezbollah. The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, broke out in 1987, with 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 attacks against Israel. Despite public outrage, Israel heeded American calls to refrain from retaliating.

In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister following 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 Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) the right to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The PLO recognised Israel's right to exist and pledged an end to terrorism. In 1994, the Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed. Arab public support for the Accords was damaged by the continuation of Israeli settlements and checkpoints, and deterioration of economic conditions. Israeli public support for the Accords waned after Palestinian suicide attacks. In November 1995, Rabin was assassinated by a far-right Jew who opposed the Accords.

During Benjamin Netanyahu's premiership at the end of the 1990s, Israel agreed to withdraw from Hebron, though this was never 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 international human rights organisations for its "encouragement" of human rights abuses.

Ehud Barak, elected prime minister in 1999, withdrew forces from southern Lebanon and conducted negotiations with PNA Chairman Arafat and US 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 90% of the West Bank with Jerusalem as a shared capital. Each side blamed the other for the failure of the talks.

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 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 election; he carried out his plan to 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 cross-border abduction of two Israeli soldiers precipitated the month-long 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 destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria.

In 2008, a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel collapsed, resulting in the three-week Gaza War. In what Israel described as a response to over a hundred Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli cities, Israel began an operation in the Gaza Strip in 2012, lasting eight days. Israel started another operation in Gaza following an escalation of rocket attacks by Hamas in July 2014. In May 2021, another round of fighting took place in Gaza and Israel, lasting eleven days. By the 2010s, increasing regional cooperation between Israel and Arab League countries have been established, culminating in the signing of the Abraham Accords. The Israeli security situation shifted from the traditional Arab–Israeli conflict towards the Iran–Israel proxy conflict and direct confrontation with Iran during the Syrian civil war.

On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militant groups from Gaza, led by Hamas, launched 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 during a music festival. Over 200 hostages were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. Studies modeling trauma exposure and assessing mental health outcomes estimated that approximately 5.3% of Israelis may develop PTSD, with national data showing that probable PTSD nearly doubled from 16.2% to 29.8% and rates of anxiety and depression also rising sharply.

After clearing militants from its territory, Israel launched one of the most destructive bombing campaigns in modern history and 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 Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the most significant military engagement in the region since the Yom Kippur War in 1973. A United Nations Special Committee, 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.

In April 2024, Israel initiated a wave of airstrikes on Iran, after Iranian strikes targeted Israel, marking the 2024 Iran–Israel conflict the first time in which the two countries have ever directly exchanged fire. In October 2024, Israel invaded Lebanon and exchanged missile barrages with Iran three weeks later, in response of Iranian strikes earlier in that month. After nearly a year of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict from October 2023 due to Hezbollah shooting rockets at Israel to support Hamas in Gaza, Israel assassinated Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024. A November 2024 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. In June 2025, Israel launched a renewed series of airstrikes on Iran, targeting Iran's air defence systems, missile launchers, their military leadership, and their nuclear programme, which escalated into a full-scale war. In February 2026, Israel and the United States launched extensive airstrikes on Iran, assassinating Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and sparking the 2026 Iran war and the 2026 Lebanon war. The strikes aimed to destroy the Iranian military, nuclear programme, and achieve regime change.

Israel is located in the Levant area of the Fertile Crescent. At the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, 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 29° and 34° N, and longitudes 34° and 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 20,770 square kilometres (8,019 sq mi), of which two per cent 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 22,072 square kilometres (8,522 sq mi), and the total area under Israeli control, including the military-controlled and partially Palestinian-governed territory of the West Bank, is 27,799 square kilometres (10,733 sq mi).

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 Galilee, Carmel and towards the 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 6,500-kilometre (4,039 mi) 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 Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the Earth. Further south is the Arabah, ending with the Gulf of Eilat, part of the Red Sea. 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 metre 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.

The Jordan Rift Valley is the result of tectonic movements within the Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system. The DST forms the 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 and 1033. The deficit in slip that has built up since 1033 is sufficient to cause an earthquake of Mw~7.4.

The most catastrophic known earthquakes occurred in 31 BCE, 363, 749, and 1033 CE, that is every ca. 400 years on average. Destructive earthquakes strike about every 80 years, leading to serious loss of life . While stringent construction regulations are in place and recently built structures are earthquake resistant, as of 2007 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.

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 750 metres (2,460 ft) or more (same elevation as Jerusalem) usually receive at least one snowfall each year. From May to September, rain is rare.

There are four different 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 species of plants in Israel. Of these, at least 253 species are introduced and non-native. There are 380 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 Israel the leading nation in solar energy use per capita—practically every house uses solar panels for water heating. The Ministry of Environmental Protection has reported that climate change "will have a decisive impact on all areas of life", particularly for vulnerable populations.

Israel has a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. A member of parliament supported by a parliamentary majority becomes the prime minister—usually this is the chair of the largest party. The prime minister is the head of government and of cabinet. The president is head of state, with largely ceremonial duties.

Israel is governed by a 120-member parliament, known as the Knesset. Membership of the Knesset is based on proportional representation of 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 election, 10 of the 120 members of the Knesset (8%) were settlers. Parliamentary elections are scheduled every four years, but unstable coalitions or a 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 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 characterises Israel as principally a "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".

The State of Israel is divided into six main administrative districts, known as mehozot (Hebrew: מחוזות; sing.: mahoz)—Center, Haifa, Jerusalem, North, South, and 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 (Hebrew: נפות; sing.: nafa), which are partitioned into 50 natural regions.

^a Including 361,700 Arabs and 233,900 Jews in East Jerusalem, as of 2020.

^b Israeli citizens only.

The 1950 Law of Return grants Jews the unrestricted right to immigrate to Israel and obtain Israeli citizenship. Individuals born within the country receive 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.

In 1967, as a result of the Six-Day War, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. After an agreement was reached between Israel and Syria a year after the Yom Kippur War, a buffer zone monitored by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) was established in 1974. Also sparked by the Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Israel reached a peace agreement due to the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, both mediated by former American President Jimmy Carter. In the mediation, Egypt agreed to formally recognise Israel and to heavily demilitarise the Sinai, in exchange for Israel to fully return the Sinai to Egypt in 1982; however, Egypt refused to take in the Gaza Strip and it therefore remained under Israeli occupation until the 2005 disengagement plan. Between 1982 and 2000, Israel occupied part of southern Lebanon, in what was known as the 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.

The West Bank area, 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 large part of Israel's civil and criminal laws, and their output is considered part of Israel's economy. 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. 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 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 Israeli military administration. Since the Israel–PLO letters of recognition, most of the Palestinian population and 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 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 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 assumed power in the Gaza Strip, Israel tightened control of the Gaza crossings along 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 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.