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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea, and shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the southwest; it is also bordered by the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively. Tel Aviv is the economic and technological center of the country, while its seat of government is in its proclaimed capital of Jerusalem, although Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem is unrecognized internationally. Inhabited since the Middle Bronze Age by Canaanite tribes,[1] the land held by present-day Israel was once the setting for much of Biblical history, beginning with the 9th-century Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah,[2][3] which fell, respectively, to the Neo-Assyrian Empire (c. 720 BCE) and Neo-Babylonian Empire (586 BCE).[4] Later rulers included the Achaemenid Empire, Alexander the Great, the Seleucid Empire, the Hasmonean dynasty, and, from 63 BCE, the Roman Republic and later Roman Empire. From the 5th century CE, it was part of the Byzantine Empire, up until the 7th century Rashidun Caliphate's conquest of the Levant. With the First Crusade of 1096–1099, Crusader states were established. Muslim rule was then restored in 1291 by the Mamluk Sultanate, which later ceded the territory to the Ottoman Empire. During the 19th century, the Zionist movement began promoting the creation of a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Syria. Following World War I, Britain was granted control of the region by League of Nations mandate, in what became known as Mandatory Palestine. After World War II, the newly formed United Nations adopted the Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947, recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, and an internationalized Jerusalem.[5] Following a civil war within Mandatory Palestine between Yishuv and Palestinian Arab forces, Israel declared independence at the termination of the British Mandate. The war internationalized into the 1948 Arab–Israeli War between Israel and several surrounding Arab states and concluded with the 1949 Armistice Agreements that saw Israel in control of most of the former mandate territory, while the West Bank and Gaza were held by Jordan and Egypt respectively. Over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs, about half of the pre-war Arab population, were expelled from or fled the territory Israel would come to control. During and immediately after the war, around 260,000 Jews emigrated or fled from the Arab world. Israel has since fought wars with several Arab countries, and since the 1967 Six-Day War has occupied the Golan Heights and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, though whether Gaza remains occupied following the Israeli disengagement is disputed. Israel has effectively annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, though these actions have been rejected as illegal by the international community, and established settlements within the occupied territories, which are also considered illegal under international law. While Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and has normalized relations with a number of other Arab countries, it remains formally at war with Syria and with Lebanon, and efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have thus far stalled. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish and democratic state, and as the . Israel grants the right to citizenship to all Jews, has absorbed Jewish immigrants throughout its history, and since 1948 has increased the proportion of Jews worldwide that live in Israel from six percent to over thirty-five percent by 2005. The country has a parliamentary system, proportional representation, and universal suffrage. The prime minister serves as head of government and the Knesset is the unicameral legislature.[6] Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with a population of over 9 million people . It has the world's 29th-largest economy by nominal GDP,[7] and ranks nineteenth in the Human Development Index.[8]
[edit] How places in Israel are organized[edit] All places in Israel[edit] Further information on historical place organization in Israel[edit] Research Tips
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