Palestine

The land — shared in its ancient and religious history with the account on the Israel page — was part of Ottoman and then British-administered "Palestine". A 1947 United Nations plan proposed separate Jewish and Arab states; the Arab leadership rejected it. In the 1948 war that followed Israel's declaration of independence, around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled — the Nakba, or "catastrophe" — and the territory intended for the Arab state was divided: the West Bank came under Jordanian rule and the Gaza Strip under Egyptian control.

Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza in the 1967 war, and began building settlements, which most of the world considers illegal under international law (a view Israel disputes). The First Intifada broke out in 1987, and the following year the PLO declared Palestinian independence. The Oslo Accords of 1993–95 created the Palestinian Authority with limited self-rule in the towns (Area A) and some rural areas (Area B), while Israel kept full control of Area C, about 60 per cent of the West Bank. The Second Intifada (2000–05) was far bloodier, and Israel began building the separation barrier in 2002.

Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005. Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and, after a violent split with Fatah in 2007, took sole control of Gaza, while the Palestinian Authority governs parts of the West Bank; Israel and Egypt have blockaded Gaza since. Wars in Gaza followed in 2008–09, 2012, 2014, and 2021. In 2012 the UN General Assembly upgraded Palestine to a non-member observer state. A Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 killed about 1,200 people; Israel's ensuing war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, displaced almost the entire population, and produced famine conditions, while the West Bank has seen intensified settlement expansion, settler violence, and Israeli raids. A lasting political settlement remains absent.

Palestinian society is Arab, mostly Sunni Muslim, with a historic Christian minority concentrated around Bethlehem, Beit Jala, and Ramallah, and a tiny Samaritan community near Nablus. Attachment to land, and specifically to the family village and its olive trees, runs through the culture, and symbols such as the keffiyeh and the house key stand for the experience of displacement and the claim of return.

Hospitality is a strong obligation, and family and clan (hamula) ties are central. Living traditions include dabke line dancing, Palestinian embroidery (tatreez, on UNESCO's heritage list), the poetry associated above all with Mahmoud Darwish, and a large body of folk song and proverb. A significant share of the population are refugees, many still in camps in the territories and in neighbouring countries, and there is a worldwide diaspora, the shatat. The value of sumud — steadfastness, staying put — is often invoked.

Around 5.5 million Palestinians live in the territories — roughly 3.3 million in the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and about 2.2 million in Gaza before 2023. In the West Bank, daily movement is shaped by checkpoints, the separation barrier, roads reserved for settlers, permit regimes, and periodic closures. The economy is heavily dependent on Israel — for labour permits, the shekel, and a customs union — as well as on foreign aid and remittances, and unemployment is high. Restrictions in Area C limit Palestinian building and access to water and grazing.

Palestinians in East Jerusalem hold Israeli residency but not citizenship, and can lose that status if they live elsewhere. Gaza before the war held 2.2 million people in 365 square kilometres under blockade, with electricity for only part of the day and undrinkable groundwater; since October 2023 most of it has been destroyed, with mass displacement and starvation.

Palestinian cooking shares the Levantine base of hummus, falafel, and grilled meats, with dishes of its own. Musakhan — chicken roasted with sumac and caramelised onions on taboon bread and doused in olive oil — is the national dish. Maqluba, an "upside-down" pot of rice, meat, and fried vegetables, is the classic family meal; maftoul is a hand-rolled couscous; and the east and the Bedouin areas make mansaf with jameed yoghurt.

Nablus is famous for knafeh Nabulsiyeh, a hot cheese pastry soaked in orange-blossom syrup, and for its olive-oil soap. Za'atar and olive oil, freekeh, and stuffed vegetables (mahashi) are everyday staples. Coffee is strong and cardamom-scented, sage tea is common, and there are two homegrown alcoholic producers — the Taybeh brewery in a West Bank Christian village and the Cremisan winery run by Salesian monks near Bethlehem.

In practice, visiting means the West Bank. Bethlehem has the Church of the Nativity over the traditional birthplace of Jesus, Manger Square, the Milk Grotto, Shepherds' Field, and, by the separation barrier, the artist-decorated Walled Off Hotel. Jericho, among the oldest continuously inhabited towns on Earth, has the Tell es-Sultan mound (a UNESCO site), the Umayyad Hisham's Palace, and the cable car to the Mount of Temptation monastery, with the Dead Sea's northern shore and the Jordan River baptism site of Qasr al-Yahud nearby.

Hebron holds the Ibrahimi Mosque over the Cave of the Patriarchs, sacred to Jews and Muslims and sharply divided, and a walled Old City with a covered souq. Nablus has an Ottoman old town, soap workshops, and knafeh, with the Samaritan community and Roman ruins of Sebastia close by. Ramallah is the lively de facto administrative capital, with the tomb and museum of Yasser Arafat. The Battir agricultural terraces near Bethlehem are a UNESCO World Heritage Site — "Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines" — and the cliff-clinging Mar Saba monastery sits in the Kidron desert. Gaza's Byzantine mosaics, the Great Omari Mosque, and its Mediterranean beach are, for now, damaged or destroyed and entirely out of reach.