Palestine , officially the State of Palestine , is a country in the southern Levant region of West Asia . It encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip , collectively known as the Palestinian territories , within the larger historic Palestine region. The country shares most of its borders with Israel , and it borders Jordan to the east and Egypt to the southwest. It has a total land area of 6,020 square kilometres (2,320 sq mi) while its population exceeds five million people. Its proclaimed capital is Jerusalem , while Ramallah serves as its administrative center. Gaza City was its largest city until 2023 .
During World War I , the United Kingdom supported the establishment of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine, based on the ideology of Zionism .
The war saw Britain occupying Palestine from the Ottoman Empire , where it set up Mandatory Palestine under the auspices of the League of Nations . During this period, large-scale Jewish immigration allowed by the British authorities led to increased tensions and violence with the local Palestinian Arab population. By 1947, Britain handed the issue to the United Nations, which proposed a partition plan , for two independent Arab and Jewish states and an independent entity for Jerusalem , but a civil war broke out, and the plan was not implemented.
The 1948 Palestine war saw the forcible displacement of most of its predominantly Palestinian Arab population, and consequently the establishment of Israel , in what Palestinians call the Nakba . During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip , which had been held by Jordan and Egypt respectively. In 1993, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo peace accords with Israel, creating the Palestinian Authority (PA). In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in its unilateral disengagement , but the territory is still considered to be under military occupation and was put under blockade by Israel. In 2007, internal divisions between Palestinian political factions led to a takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas . Since then, the West Bank has been governed in part by the PA, led by Fatah , while the Gaza Strip has remained under the control of Hamas . Israel has constructed large settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1967, where currently more than 670,000 Israeli settlers live in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law .
Currently, the biggest challenges to the country include the Israeli occupation, a blockade , restrictions on movement , Israeli settlements and settler violence , as well as an overall poor security situation. The questions of Palestine's borders , the legal and diplomatic status of Jerusalem , and the right of return of Palestinian refugees remain unsolved. Despite these challenges, the country maintains an emerging economy and sees frequent tourism . Arabic is the official language. The majority of Palestinians practice Islam while Christianity also has a presence . Palestine is also a member of several international organizations , including the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation . It has been a non-member observer state of the United Nations since 2012. (Full article... )
Bani Na'im (Arabic: بني نعيم , Banî Na‘îm ) is a Palestinian town in the southern West Bank located 8 kilometers (5.0 mi) east of Hebron in the Hebron Governorate . The town had a population of 20,084 inhabitants in 2007. It is situated at a higher elevation than most localities in the area with an altitude of 951 meters (3,120 ft). Known as Brekke in the pre-Roman era, it was later referred to as "Caphar Barucha" in the 4th-century. The town is best known as the burial place of Lot . Following the Muslim conquest , its name was Arabicized as "Kafr al-Barik." The tomb of Lot was turned into a mosque during Islamic rule and remained so under Crusader rule. Later, the Arab tribe of "Bani Nu'aym" settled there, giving the town its current name "Bani Na'im," first used by Muslim scholar Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi in 1690. Bani Na'im grew in population during the British Mandate for Palestine . It joined the 1936–1939 Arab revolt as the site of a battle between the irregular Palestinian Arab forces of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and the British Army . Following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , Bani Na'im was annexed by Jordan . It came under Israeli occupation after Israel captured the West Bank during the Six-Day War in 1967. In 1997, Bani Na'im was transferred to Palestinian administration and consequently became a municipality . Today, it serves as a commercial center for Hebron area villages, although most government services are in Hebron.
I simply want tomorrow to be better than today. I want Palestine to be independent and sovereign... Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.
Edward Wadie Saïd (Arabic pronunciation: [wædiːʕ sæʕiːd] Arabic : إدوارد وديع سعيد , Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd ; 1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was an American -Palestinian literary theorist , and University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University . He was a founding figure of the critical field of post-colonialism . Saïd was a Palestinian Arab born in Jerusalem (then in the British Mandate of Palestine ), and held an American passport through his father who was a Palestinian U.S. citizen with Protestant origins. Said was an advocate for the human rights of the Palestinian people , whom the commentator Robert Fisk described as the Palestinians' most powerful voice. As an influential cultural critic , academic, and writer, Edward Saïd was known best for the book Orientalism (1978), a critical analysis of the ideas that are the bases of Orientalism — the Western study of Eastern cultures. As a public intellectual , he discussed contemporary politics, music, culture, and literature, in lectures, newspaper and magazine articles, and books. Drawing from his family experiences as a Palestinian Christian in the Middle East, at the time of the establishment of Israel (1948), Saïd argued for the establishment of a Palestinian state , equal political and human rights for the Palestinians in Israel — including the right of return — and for increased U.S. political pressure upon Israel to recognize, grant, and respect said rights; he also criticized the political and cultural politics of Arab and Muslim régimes. He received a Western education in the U.S., where he resided from adolescence until his death in 2003; as such, in his memoirs, Out of Place (1999), Saïd applied his dual cultural heritage to narrow the gap of political and cultural understanding between The West and the Middle East, to improve Western understanding of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict . His decade-long membership in the Palestinian National Council , and his pro–Palestinian political activism, made him a controversial public intellectual.
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