Israel

Israel,[a] officially the State of Israel,[b] is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, the Red Sea to the south, Egypt to the southwest, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and the Palestinian territories – the West Bank along the east and the Gaza Strip along the southwest.[21] Tel Aviv is the financial, 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.[c][23]

Israel is located in a region known historically as Canaan, Palestine, and the Holy Land. In antiquity, it was home to several Canaanite, and later, Israelite and Judahite states, and is referred to as the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. The region was successively conquered by the Assyrian, Babylonian, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine empires, Arab Caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks and Ottomans. The late 19th century saw the rise of Zionism in Europe, a movement seeking a Jewish homeland, which garnered British support during World War I. During the war, the Ottomans were defeated and the British Mandate for Palestine was set up in 1920. Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine increased considerably, leading to intercommunal conflict between Jews and Arabs.[24] The 1947 UN Partition Plan triggered a civil war between the two groups, which saw the expulsion and flight of most of Palestine's predominantly Arab population.

The State of Israel declared its establishment on 14 May 1948, the day the British terminated the Mandate. On 15 May 1948, the armies of neighboring Arab states invaded the area of the former Mandatory Palestine, starting the First Arab–Israeli War. The 1949 Armistice Agreements saw Israel's borders established over most of the former Mandate territory, while the rest, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, were taken by Jordan and Egypt respectively.[25][26][27] The 1967 Six-Day War saw Israel occupying the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Syrian Golan Heights. It has since established and continues to expand settlements across the occupied territories, actions which are deemed illegal under international law, and annexed both East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, which are largely unrecognized internationally. Since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt, returning the Sinai Peninsula, and with Jordan, and more recently normalized relations with several Arab countries. However, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not succeeded. Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained international criticism along with accusations that it has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people from human rights organizations and United Nations officials.

The country has a parliamentary system elected by proportional representation. The prime minister serves as head of government, and is elected by the Knesset, Israel's unicameral legislature.[28] Israel has one of the biggest economies in the Middle East by nominal GDP, [29] it is one of the richest countries in the Middle East and Asia,[30][31][32] and an OECD member since 2010.[33] It has one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East, and has been ranked as one of the most advanced and technological countries,[34][35][36] with a population of nearly 10 million people as of 2023[update].[37][18]