Ashkelon Marina Breakwater Light

The Battle of Ascalon took place on 12 August 1099 shortly after the capture of Jerusalem, and is often considered the last action of the First Crusade. The crusader army led by Godfrey of Bouillon defeated and drove off a Fatimid army. The Crusaders completed their primary objective of capturing Jerusalem on 15 July 1099. In early August, they learned of the approach of a 20,000-strong Fatimid army under vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah. Under Godfrey's command the 10,200-strong Crusader army took the offensive, leaving the city on 10 August to risk everything on a great battle against the approaching Muslims. The Crusaders marched barefoot, carrying the relic of the True Cross with them, accompanied by patriarch Arnulf of Chocques. The army marched south from Jerusalem, approaching the vicinity of Ascalon on the 11th and capturing Egyptian spies who revealed al-Afdal's dispositions and strength. (The distance from Jerusalem to Ascalon is about 77 km (48 mi)) At dawn on 12 August, the Crusader army launched a surprise attack on the Fatimid army still sleeping in its camp outside the defensive walls of Ascalon. The Fatimids had failed to post enough guards, leaving only a part of their army capable of fighting. The Crusaders quickly defeated the half-ready Fatimid infantry, while the Fatimid cavalry had little contribution in the fighting. The battle ended in less than an hour. The Crusader knights reached the center of the camp, capturing the vizier's standard and personal baggage, including his sword. Some Fatimids fled into the trees and were killed by Crusader arrows and lances, while others begged for mercy at the Crusaders' feet and were butchered en masse. The terrified vizier fled by ship to Egypt, leaving the Crusaders to kill any survivors and gather up a vast amount of loot. Ibn al-Qalanisi estimated 12,700 Fatimid dead, and mentioned that all Muslims with the means to do so chose to emigrate. The first Muslim attempt to recapture Jerusalem ended in complete defeat, but Godfrey failed to exploit the victory and take Ascalon, whose Fatimid garrison was willing to surrender only to Raymond of Toulouse, a condition Godfrey would not accept. The Fatimid base in Ascalon remained a thorn in the side of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and would not fall until the siege of Ascalon of 1153.

Al-Jura (Arabic: الجورة) was a Palestinian village that was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, located immediately adjacent to the towns of Ashkelon and the ruins of ancient Ascalon. In 1945, the village had a population of approximately 2,420 mostly Muslim inhabitants. Though defended by the Egyptian Army, al-Jura was nevertheless captured by Israel's Givati Brigade in a November 4, 1948, offensive as part of Operation Yoav. Its residents had their origins in Egypt, Hebron, and Bedouin communities. The Shrine of Husayn's Head was located outside the town, until it was destroyed by the Israeli army in 1950. The founder and spiritual leader of the Hamas militant organization Ahmed Yassin was born in al-Jura.

The siege of Ascalon took place from 25 January to 22 August 1153, in the time period between the Second and Third Crusades, and resulted in the capture of the Fatimid Egyptian fortress by the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Ascalon was an important castle that was used by the Fatimids to launch raids into the Crusader kingdom's territory, and by 1153 it was the last coastal city in Palestine that was not controlled by the Crusaders. The siege lasted for several months without much progress, despite the usage of siege engines and catapults by the Crusader army. On 16 August, the Fatimids set fire to the siege tower, but the wind blew the flames back at the castle wall and caused part of it to collapse. A group of Knights Templar entered the breach, led by their Grand Master, Bernard de Tremelay. The other Crusaders did not follow them into the city and all forty Templars were killed. Three days later, a larger attack was launched by the Crusaders and the city surrendered after more fighting. Its inhabitants were given three days to leave Ascalon before the Crusaders formally took it over on 22 August 1153. Its capture was a major success for King Baldwin III of Jerusalem and put the Crusaders into a position to invade Egypt. The victory was also the first significant territorial gain for the Kingdom of Jerusalem since the acquisition of Banias in 1140.

Ashkelon or Ashqelon ( ASH-kə-lon; Hebrew: אַשְׁקְלוֹן, romanized: ʾAšqəlōn, IPA: [ʔaʃkeˈlon] ; Arabic: عَسْقَلَان, romanized: ʿAsqalān) is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, 50 kilometres (30 mi) south of Tel Aviv, and 13 kilometres (8 mi) north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The modern city is named after the ancient seaport of Ascalon, which was destroyed in 1270 and whose remains are on the southwestern edge of the modern metropolis. The Israeli city, first known as Migdal, was founded in 1949 approximately 4 km inland from ancient Ascalon at the Palestinian town of al-Majdal (Arabic: الْمِجْدَل, romanized: al-Mijdal; Hebrew: אֵל־מִגְ׳דַּל, romanized: ʾĒl-Mīǧdal). Its inhabitants had been exclusively Muslims and Christians and the area had been allocated to the Arab state in the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine; on the eve of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War the inhabitants numbered 10,000 and in October 1948, the city accommodated thousands more Palestinian refugees from nearby villages. The town was conquered by Israeli forces on 5 November 1948, by which time much of the Arab population had fled, leaving some 2,700 inhabitants, of whom 500 were deported by Israeli soldiers in December 1948 and most of the rest were deported by 1950. Today, the city's population is almost entirely Jewish. Migdal, as it was called in Hebrew, was initially repopulated by Jewish immigrants and demobilized soldiers. It was subsequently renamed multiple times, first as Migdal Gaza, Migdal Gad and Migdal Ashkelon, until in 1953 the coastal neighborhood of Afridar was incorporated and the name Ashkelon was adopted for the combined town. By 1961, Ashkelon was ranked 18th among Israeli urban centers with a population of 24,000. In 2022 the population of Ashkelon was 153,138, making it the third-largest city in Israel's Southern District.

The Ashkelon Subdistrict is the northern of the two sub-districts in Israel's Southern District. Its population is more than half a million. It is an important region for manufacturing including electricity production and water desalination, agriculture, transportation, tourism, and trade. Ashdod is the largest city in the subdistrict. The capital of the subdistrict, Ashkelon, is its second-largest city. Both are on the Mediterranean Sea. The other cities in the subdistrict, Kiryat Malakhi, Kiryat Gat, and Sderot, are smaller and located inland. The subdistrict borders clockwise with the Rehovot Subdistrict in the north, the Jerusalem District and the West Bank in the east, the Beersheba Subdistrict in the south, and the Gaza Strip and the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

Ashkelon Academic College (Hebrew: המכללה האקדמית אשקלון, HaMiklala HaAkademit Ashkelon) is a public college in Ashkelon, Israel. The college has two faculties, the School of Economics and Social Work, for management, logistics, banking, and accounting, in which undergraduate and graduate studies take place, as well as the School of Health Sciences, for undergraduate studies in nutrition, nursing, and public health. The college provides programs in undergraduate studies in the fields of politics and government, computer science, sociology and anthropology, psychology, criminology, Land of Israel studies, tourism and multidisciplinary studies in the social sciences.

Barzilai Medical Center (Hebrew: מרכז רפואי ברזילי, Merkaz Refu'i Barzilai; Arabic: مركز برزيلاي الطبي) is a 600-bed district general hospital in Ashkelon, Israel opened in 1961. The hospital serves a population of 500,000, including a large number of Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, and has more than 100,000 admissions annually. The grounds contain the site of the former Shrine of Husayn's Head, a Shia pilgrimage site before its destruction by the Israeli Defense Forces under Moshe Dayan in 1950.

The Sala Stadium (Hebrew: אצטדיון סלה) is a sports stadium in Ashkelon, Israel. The stadium has a 5,250 capacity, and is the home ground of Maccabi Ashkelon. On 29 December 2008, shortly before a training session, the stadium was hit by a Grad rocket fired from the Gaza Strip. The rocket landed in the penalty area.

The Ashkelon Sport Arena (Hebrew: היכל הספורט העירוני אשקלון) is an indoor sporting arena located in Ashkelon, Israel. The arena opened in 1999 and is home to the Elitzur Eito Ashkelon Basketball Club. The arena has a capacity of 3,000 permanent seats.

Hamama (Arabic: حمامة; also known in Byzantine times as Peleia) was a Palestinian town of over 5,000 inhabitants that was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It was located 24 kilometers north of Gaza. It was continuously inhabited from the Mamluk period (in the 13th century) until 1948.its ruins are today in the north of the Israeli city of Ashkelon.

Nizahon Restaurant (מסעדת הניצחון) was a Romanian grill in Ashkelon and one of Israel's oldest restaurants. The restaurant did not have kashrut certification and was open on Shabbat.

Shikma Prison (Hebrew: בית סוהר שקמה) is an Israeli prison located in Ashkelon.There are many Palestinian prisoners there including the engineer Dirar Abu Sisi who was kidnapped in Ukraine in February 2011. Among the former prisoners is Israeli scientist Mordechai Vanunu.