Israelites

The Israelites (בני ישראל, Standard: Bnai Yisraʾel; Tiberian: Bnai Yiśrāʾēl; ISO 259-3: Bnai Yiśraʾel, translated as: "Children of Israel") were a Semitic Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East, who inhabited part of the Land of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods (15th to 6th centuries BCE), later evolving into Jews and Samaritans of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, inhabiting the territories of Judea and Galilee, and Samaria respectively, though a Jewish diaspora had already developed outside of Judea and Galilee. In Modern Hebrew usage, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious community, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites.