Young Israeli Girl

The area is also known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith. Prior to the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence, the region was known by various other names including Palestine, Southern Syria, Syria Palestina, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Iudaea Province, Coele-Syria, Retjenu and Canaan.
Antiquity
The Land of Israel, known in Hebrew as Eretz Yisrael, has been sacred to the Jewish people since Biblical times. According to the Torah, God promised the Land of Israel to the three Patriarchs of the Jewish people. Scholars place the period of the three Patriarchs somewhere in the early 2nd millennium BCE. According to Biblical evidence the first Kingdom of Israel was established around the 11th century BCE. Subsequent Israelite kingdoms and states ruled intermittently over the next thousand years, and are known from various extra-biblical sources.