Description : The Daughters of Jacob Bridge (Hebrew: גשר בנות יעקב, Gesher Bnot Ya'akov, or Arabic: Jisr Benat Ya'kub) (Arabic: جسر بنات يعقوب), is a site on the upper Jordan River. It has the last good ford at the southern end of the Hula Basin before the Jordan gets squeezed between the Korazim Plateau and the Golan Heights, and has thus been a crossing point for thousands of years. The name Jacob's Ford arose during the Crusades and is still in use, mostly in English. The bridge was the best-known medieval bridge in Palestine, and was destroyed during the draining of Lake Hula by the PLDC.Located south−west of the bridge is the destroyed Crusader castle Chastellet (de), and just east of the bridge are the remains of a Mamluk Khan. The modern bridge is part of Highway 91 and straddles the border between Israel and Syria (presently the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights). It is of strategic military significance as it is one of the few fixed crossing points over the upper Jordan River which enable access from the Golan Heights to the Upper Galilee. The caravan route from China to Morocco via Mesopotamia and Egypt used this crossing as part of the ancient Via Maris, which has been strategically important to Egyptian, Assyrian, Hittite, Jew, Saracen Arab, Crusader knight, and Ottoman Janissary, who had all crossed the river at this place. The Crusaders built a castle overlooking the ford which threatened Damascus and was promptly attacked and destroyed by Saladin in 1179. The old arched stone bridge had marked the northern limit of Napoleon's advance in 1799.
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