Israelites

Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age.

Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanite populations and other peoples. They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, which was a regional variety of the Canaanite languages, and worshipped Yahweh. In the Iron Age, the Israelites established the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, whose capital cities were Samaria and Jerusalem respectively. Around 720 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire, followed by the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE. During the latter, some Judeans were exiled to Babylon but returned to the land of Judah after Cyrus the Great conquered the region.

According to the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites were the descendants of Jacob, a patriarch who was later renamed as Israel. Due to a severe drought in Canaan, Jacob and his twelve sons fled to Egypt, where they gradually formed the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Israelites were subsequently enslaved by the Egyptians but were liberated by Moses. Under the leadership of Moses's successor, Joshua, they also conquered Canaan. After the conquest, the Israelites established a kritarchy, followed by the United Kingdom of Israel. The latter split into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Modern scholars consider these narratives to be part of the Israelites' national myth but believe there is a 'historical core'.The historicity of the United Kingdom of Israel is also widely disputed.

Jews and Samaritans both trace their ancestry to the ancient Israelites. Jews trace their ancestry to tribes that inhabited the Kingdom of Judah, including Judah, Benjamin and partially Levi, while the Samaritans claim their lineage from the remaining members of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Levi who were not deported in the Assyrian captivity after the fall of Israel. Other groups also claim affiliation with the Israelites.