country zoan
___MASK5___ , is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea . One of the oldest cities in the world , ___MASK5___ was named as "" Urusalima "" on ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets , probably meaning " City of Shalem " after a Canaanite deity , during the early Canaanite period ( approximately 2400 BCE ). During the Israelite period , significant construction activity in ___MASK5___ began in the 9th century BCE ( Iron Age II ), and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah . It is considered a holy city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism , Christianity and Islam . The Committee of the Jewish Community of Hebron is the municipal body of the Israeli settlers of the city of Hebron in the ___MASK24___ . The community constitutes a regional committee , including the Har Hevron Regional Council . The mayor / spokesman of the community is David Wilder . Beit HaShalom ( the House of Peace ) was established in March 2007 . Alexandria ( or ; Arabic : '; '; "") is the second largest city and a major economic centre in ___MASK23___ , extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country . Its low elevation on the Nile delta makes it highly vulnerable to rising sea levels . Alexandria is ___MASK23___ ' s largest seaport , serving approximately 80 % of ___MASK23___ ' s imports and exports . It is an important industrial center because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez . Alexandria is also an important tourist destination . Lower ___MASK23___ ("") is the northernmost region of ___MASK23___ : the fertile Nile Delta , between Upper ___MASK23___ and the Mediterranean Sea  from El Aiyat , south of modern - day Cairo , and Dahshur . The Judaean Mountains or Judaean Hills (" Harei Yehuda ", " Jibal Al Khalil "), is a mountain range in ___MASK25___ and the ___MASK24___ where ___MASK5___ and several other biblical cities are located . The mountains reach a height of . The Judean Mountains can be separated to a number of sub - regions , including the Mount Hebron ridge , the ___MASK5___ ridge and the Judean slopes . These mountains formed the heartland of the Kingdom of Judah , where the earliest Jewish settlements emerged . Judaism ( from , derived from Greek , originally from Hebrew , " Yehudah ", " ___MASK73___ "; in Hebrew : , " Yahadut ", the distinctive characteristics of the Judean ethnos ) encompasses the religion , philosophy , culture and way of life of the Jewish people . Judaism is an ancient monotheistic religion , with the Torah as its foundational text ( part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible ), and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud . Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenantal relationship that God established with the Children of Israel . With between 14 . 5 and 17 . 4 million adherents ___MASK47___ , Judaism is the tenth - largest religion in the world . Biblical Hebrew (" Ivrit Miqra ' it " or " Leshon ha - Miqra "), also called Classical Hebrew , is an archaic form of Hebrew , a Canaanite Semitic language spoken by the Israelites in the area known as ___MASK25___ , roughly west of the ___MASK75___ River and east of the Mediterranean Sea . The term " Hebrew " was not used for the language in the Bible , which was referred to as Canaanite or Judahite , but the name was used in Greek and Mishnaic Hebrew texts . Biblical Hebrew is attested from about the 10th century BCE , and persisted through and beyond the Second Temple period , which ended in the siege of Jerusalem ( AD 70 ). Zoan ( Hebrew : Tso ` an ) was according to the Hebrew Bible , a city of ___MASK23___ in the eastern Nile delta . Numbers 13 : 22 says that it was built seven years after Hebron was built . Psalm 78 : 12 , 43 identifies the `` field of Zoan '' as where Moses performed miracles before Pharaoh to persuade him to release Israel from his service . The city is also mentioned in Isaiah 19 : 11 , 13 , Isaiah 30 : 4 and Ezekiel 30 : 14 . The Greek Septuagint in all of these verses uses the Greek name Tanis ; both Tanis and Tso ' an are ultimately derived from the Egyptian name for Tanis , Djanet or Djan ( Modern Arabic Tsan ) . This city was not actually built until ca . 1075 BC , however references to Zoan existing previously as early as the time of Abraham are taken to mean the old Hyksos capital at Avaris and the nearby Ramesside capital of Pi - Ramesses , about 25 km . from the site of Tanis . The mentions in Isaiah and Ezekiel certainly correspond with the later Tanis . The ___MASK24___ ("" " HaGadah HaMa ' aravit ") is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia , forming the bulk of the ___MASK9___ . The ___MASK24___ shares boundaries ( demarcated by the Jordanian - Israeli armistice of 1949 ) to the west , north , and south with Israel , and to the east , across the ___MASK75___ River , with ___MASK75___ . The ___MASK24___ also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore . Cairo (; ', ') is the capital and largest city of ___MASK23___ . The city ' s metropolitan area is the largest in the ___MASK31___ and the Arab world , and 15th - largest in the world , and is associated with ___MASK88___ , as the famous Giza pyramid complex and the ancient city of Memphis are located in its geographical area . Located near the Nile Delta , modern Cairo was founded in 969 CE by Jawhar al - Siqilli (" the Sicilian ") of the Fatimid dynasty , but the land composing the present - day city was the site of ancient national capitals whose remnants remain visible in parts of Old Cairo . Cairo has long been a center of the region ' s political and cultural life , and is nicknamed " the city of a thousand minarets " for its preponderance of Islamic architecture . Hebron is a Palestinian city located in the southern ___MASK24___ , south of ___MASK5___ . Nestled in the Judaean Mountains , it lies 930 meters ( 3 , 050 ft ) above sea level . It is the largest city in the ___MASK24___ , and the second largest in the ___MASK9___ after Gaza , and home to 215 , 452 Palestinians ( 2016 ), and between 500 and 850 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter . The city is divided into two sectors : H1 , controlled by the Palestinian Authority and H2 , roughly 20 % of the city , administered by Israel . All security arrangements and travel permits for local residents are coordinated between the Palestinian Authority and Israel via military administration of the ___MASK24___ ( COGAT ). The settlers are governed by their own municipal body , the Committee of the Jewish Community of Hebron . The city is venerated by Jews , Christians , and Muslims for its association with Abraham , containing the traditional burial site of the biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs , within the Cave of the Patriarchs . In Judaism it is considered the second - holiest city after ___MASK5___ , while Islam regards it as one of the four holy cities . ___MASK23___ (; ', , " Kimi "), officially the Arab Republic of ___MASK23___ , is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula . ___MASK23___ is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast , the Gulf of Aqaba to the east , the Red Sea to the east and south , ___MASK42___ to the south , and Libya to the west . Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies ___MASK75___ , and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia , although ___MASK75___ and Saudi Arabia do not share a land border with ___MASK23___ . It is the world ' s only contiguous Afrasian nation . The Nile ( " en - Nl ", " an - Nl " " P ( h ) iaro "; Ancient Egyptian : "  ' p " and " Iteru "; Biblical Hebrew :  , " Ha - Ye ' or ") is a major north - flowing river in northeastern Africa . It is generally regarded as the longest river in the ___MASK39___ , however other conflicting sources cite a 2007 study that gave the title to the Amazon River in South America . The Nile , which is 6 , 853 km ( 4 , 258 miles ) long , is an " international " river as its water resources are shared by eleven countries , namely , ___MASK6___ , ___MASK33___ , ___MASK67___ , Burundi , Congo - Kinshasa , Kenya , Ethiopia , Eritrea , ___MASK99___ , Sudan and Egypt . In particular , the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan . The Mediterranean Sea ( pronounced ) is a sea connected to the ___MASK38___ , surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land : on the north by Southern Europe and Anatolia , on the south by North Africa , and on the east by the Levant . The sea is sometimes considered a part of the ___MASK38___ , although it is usually identified as a separate body of water . The Nile Delta (' or simply ') is the delta formed in Northern ___MASK23___ ( Lower ___MASK23___ ) where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea . It is one of the world ' s largest river deltas  from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east , it covers of Mediterranean coastline  and is a rich agricultural region . From north to south the delta is approximately in length . The Delta begins slightly down - river from Cairo . " ___MASK9___ " and " occupied ___MASK9___ " ( OPT or oPt ) are descriptions often used to describe the West Bank ( including East Jerusalem ) and the Gaza Strip , which are occupied or otherwise under the control of Israel . Israeli governments have maintained that the area involved is within territorial dispute . The extent of the territories , while subject to future negotiations , have frequently been defined by the Green Line . Hebrew Bible or Hebrew Scriptures is the term used by biblical scholars to refer to the " Tanakh ", the canonical collection of Jewish texts , which is the common textual source of several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament . They are composed mainly in Biblical Hebrew , with some passages in Biblical Aramaic ( in the books of Daniel , Ezra and a few others ). Port Said ("" , the first syllable has its pronunciation from French ; unurbanized local pronunciation : ) is a city that lies in north east ___MASK23___ extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea , north of the Suez Canal , with an approximate population of 603 , 787 ( 2010 ). The city was established in 1859 during the building of the Suez Canal .