The shifting borders and ancient names of the Palestinian territories
From the Greek histories of Herodotus to the modern geopolitical struggle, the identity of Palestine has been in constant flux. Today, a fragmented landscape of enclaves and settlements faces an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, caught between ancient legacies and modern conflict.
The name 'Palestine' has deep linguistic roots, tracing back to a Semitic toponym from the late second millennium BCE. The Greek historian Herodotus used the term to describe a district of Syria, and the Hebrew Bible linked similar terms to the Philistines. While the region's boundaries have been debated for millennia—sometimes overlapping with Canaan or Jordan—the modern political entity is defined by the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The 20th century brought profound structural changes. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain established Mandatory Palestine under the League of Nations. The subsequent rise of the Zionist movement and increased Jewish immigration led to intense intercommunal friction. This escalated into a civil war in 1947 following a rejected UN partition plan, and the 1948 war, which Palestinians remember as the Nakba, or 'catastrophe,' resulted in the displacement of much of the Arab population.
In 1967, the Six-Day War led to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Since then, the landscape has been shaped by the 1993 Oslo Accords, which created the Palestinian Authority, and the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. However, internal political divisions emerged in 2007 when Hamas took control of Gaza, leaving the West Bank governed by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. This fragmentation is compounded by the presence of over 737,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The current situation is marked by extreme hardship. Following the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas, a massive military operation in Gaza has led to a humanitarian disaster. Estimates suggest over 72,000 Palestinians have been killed, with a growing scholarly consensus recognizing the acts as genocide. As of mid-2025, some figures for traumatic-injury deaths in Gaza reach as high as 93,000.
Source: Palestine
