The ancient Philistines were a people of Aegean origin who settled on the southern coast of Canaan (modern-day Israel and Palestinian Gaza Strip) around the 12th century BCE. They became a confederation of city-states known as Philistia. After the Neo-Babylonian conquest in the 7th century BCE, the Philistines lost their distinct identity through exile and assimilation into other cultures, ceasing to exist as a separate ethnic group by the late 5th century BCE. Today, there are no people who are ethnically Philistine. The modern-day Palestinians are not direct descendants of the ancient Philistines. The name "Palestine" derives from the Romans who renamed the region "Syria Palestina" to insult the Jewish population by linking it to their ancient enemies, the Philistines. Modern Palestinians primarily descend from Arab populations that arrived during the Islamic conquests, with some mixing from ancient Jewish, Samaritan, and possibly some Philistine ancestry, but not as a distinct group identifiable as Philistines today. Thus, the Philistines as an ethnic group are extinct, and the modern Palestinians are a distinct people from them.
