Open chattel slavery existed in the region of Palestine until the 20th century. Under Ottoman rule, slaves were mostly African in origin, brought via the Red Sea and Trans-Saharan routes, with some Circassians.
The British Mandate of Palestine was established in 1920 and officially ended slavery as an institution, since slavery was not recognized by British law.
In practice, former slaves and their children were not given release papers and remained with their masters in a de facto state of slavery in the 1930s. British reports in 1931 found about 150 girls in Nablus sold as contract servants for 7-25 years and similar practices among Bedouin tribes.
The economic and social upheaval that followed upon the creation of the state of Israel in the 1940s meant the de facto end of the institution of slavery in Palestine.
