This is God’s creation. He is at liberty to set the rules: Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Therefore salvation is always a matter of receiving the free gift of God.
Regarding the nations outside the Promised Land: Deuteronomy 20:10 "When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it.”
However, there were no terms offered to those in the Promised Land (apart from repentance): Deuteronomy 20:16–17, God commanded the Israelites, “In the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.”
God had given them, the Amorites and Canaanites, much chance to repent: Genesis 15:13-16 Then the Lord said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Even after Israel had entered the Promised Land, they still could have repented as had Rehab: Joshua 2:10 “For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction.
The Gibeonites also saw the glorious hand of God working in Israel but used deception to avoid their due destruction: Joshua 9:9 They said to him, "From a very distant country your servants have come, because of the name of the Lord your God. For we have heard a report of him, and all that he did in Egypt.”
The Canaanites could have repented: Ezekiel 33:11 “Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”
However, they would not repent even though it would cost the lives of their children and women. They were “without excuse”: Romans 1:19–20 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
To protect Israel from contamination: Deuteronomy 20:18 that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.
Consequences of Disobedience: Judges 2:1–3 Now the angel of the LORD …said, “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.” (Largely rewritten from: https://www.gotquestions.org/Canaanites-extermination.html
Why weren’t the rest of the Canaanites not like the repentant prostitute Rehab? She became an Israelite and was even included in the lineage of Jesus (Matthew 1:5).
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