This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on the Mediterranean coastline. Excavations at Jaffa indicate that the city was settled as early as the Early Bronze Age. The city is referenced in several ancient Egyptian and Assyrian documents. Biblically, Jaffa is noted as one of the boundaries of the tribe of Dan and as a port through which Lebanese cedars were imported for the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Under Persian rule, Jaffa was given to the Phoenicians. The city features in the biblical story of Jonah and the Greek legend of Andromeda. Later, the city served as the major port of Hasmonean Judea. However, its importance declined during the Roman period due to the construction of Caesarea. Jaffa was contested during the Crusades , when it presided over the County of Jaffa and Ascalon. It is associated with the Battle of Jaffa and subsequent Treaty of Jaffa , a truce between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin , as well as a later peace treaty.
In , Napoleon also sacked the town in the Siege of Jaffa , and in the First World War the British took the city in the Battle of Jaffa , and under their watch, as part of Mandatory Palestine , ethnic tensions culminated in the Jaffa riots. As an Arab majority city in the Ottoman era, Jaffa became known starting from the 19th century for its expansive orchards and fruits, including its namesake Jaffa orange.
It was also a Palestinian hub for journalism in Mandatory Palestine in the 20th century, where Falastin and Al-Difa' newspapers were established. After the Palestine War , most of its Arab population fled or were expelled , and the city became part of then newly established state of Israel, and was unified into a single municipality with Tel Aviv in The town was mentioned in Egyptian sources and the Amarna letters as Yapu.
Mythology says that it is named for Yafet Japheth , one of the sons of Noah , the one who built it after the Flood. An outcropping of rocks near the harbor is reputed to have been the place where Andromeda was rescued by Perseus. Pliny the Elder associated the name with Iopa, daughter of Aeolus , god of the wind. The medieval Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi referred to it as Yaffa. Ancient Jaffa was built on a 40 metres ft high kurkar sandstone ridge, [ 5 ] with a broad view of the coastline, giving it a strategic importance in military history.
