Question

the people known as israelites

Answer 1

The term, Israelites, is ambiguous. It could refer to the people of the northern Hebrew Kingdom of Israel or to the the Hebrews as a whole, residents of both Israel and Judah, before they eventually became known simply as Jews. The Hebrews were said to have been descended from Israel, a grandson of the legendary Abraham, but were more probably simply a West Semitic group who gradually began to settle in the Palestinian hinterland somewhere around 1250 BCE.