Never was a Palestine. The Romans called it that after the Philistines, Israel’s hated enemy. It was part of the Ottoman Empire then later The British Mandate. There were no people calling themselves Palestinians before 1948.
If I recall correctly, there actually were such people calling themselves "Palestinians" before '48—but it was the Jewish settlers. That was before the State of Israel, and therefore no one was called "Israeli." The Arabs were busy calling themselves Arabs, having a pan-Arab movement, united in a mission to exterminate the Jews.
It was only in 1967 or so that Arafat's Soviet handlers convinced him (an Egyptian) to start claiming the land of Israel for something called "the Palestinian people."
Astro-turf claims to a homeland, Soviet-style, don't count, when you stack them up against the Bible and actual history. That's why the Palis are such heroes (snicker) in battle.
LOL ... yes there certainly were! I’m fact EVERYONE there was called a Palestinian!
They were either Palestinian Arabs or they were Palestinian Jews. And that goes WAY BACK! The Jerusalem Post of today was called The Palestine Post for decades before!
When Israel became independent, the name Palestinian Jew was changed to ISRAELI because of the existence of the new country.
And since there was no longer the two groups of “Palestinian Jew” and “Palestinian Arab” — the Arabs dropped the “Arab” part as redundant and simply went with “Palestinian”.