In 2016, Palestine was part of Ottoman Syria. I know the British later launched an invasion of the area, but I'm not sure when and through which routes--and I'm too tired to look it up. Anyway, the entire region was part of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. Palestine has never existed as a country, as far as I know, although interestingly when the term was used during the 1930s and after World War II, it was applied to Jews that lived there.