Historically the number of crossing points over the River Jordan was few, and those there were have remained for centuries. One such is on the old trade route between Akko (Acre) and Damascus―today route 91 at this point―which was part of the Via Maris and crossed by caravans from as far east as China and as far west as Morocco.
Today known as Gesher B'not Ya'acov (גשר בנות יעקב, "Daughters of Jacob Bridge"), and known by the Arabs by the same name, Jisr Benat Ya'kub (جسر بنات يعقوب), this had been a crossing point for thousands of years before the first bridge was built in mediaeval times. The Crusaders first referred to it as Jacob's Ford or, in Latin, Vadum Iacob. After King Baldwin III of Jerusalem broke the siege of Banias in 1157, he was ambushed at Jacob's Ford in June of that year. Later in the twelfth century, Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Saladin continually contested the area around Jacob's Ford. Baldwin allowed the Templars to build a castle overlooking Jacob's Ford―known in Hebrew as Mezad Ateret and in Arabic as Qașr al-'Athra, but known in those times as Chastellet, or simply as Vadum Iacob―commanding the road from Quneitra to Tiberias. On 23 August 1179, Saladin besieged and destroyed the unfinished fortification, whose impressive remains can be seen today, and are currently undergoing preservation and preparation as a heritage site.
But archaeological excavations at the site of B'not Ya'acov have revealed evidence of human habitation in the area going back 750,000 years, as well as revealing evidence of "advanced human behavior" half a million years earlier than has previously been estimated as possible. The site also produced the earliest widely-accepted evidence for the use of fire, approximately 790,000 years ago.
Some time before 1266, a bridge was built over the ford, extending Sultan Baibars' more modern postal road to Damascus along the old route. The bridge had the characteristic Mamluk double pitch, as can be seen in the print below from 1803. At some time before 1444, a merchant―Shams ed-Din al-Muzliq of Damascus―constructed a single-storey khan on the eastern side of the bridge, whose ruins remain to this day, immediately north of the later so-called "lower" custom house. In 1555−1556 the toll post at the bridge collected 25,000 akçe (an Ottoman silver coin), and in 1577 a firman (a decree) commanded that the khan keep post horses ready. Throughout the Ottoman period the road from Aleppo to Cairo passed over the bridge.
Jazzar Pasha, governor of Akko, repaired the bridge in the late eighteenth century, and a few years later, in 1799, Napoleon's troops reached it, defeating an Ottoman brigade, but proceeding no further.
In the nineteenth century the Ottomans rebuilt the khan with two storeys, and it was known at this time as Khan Jisr Benat Yacob. The remains today are a mixture of Mamluk and Ottoman ruins. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the khan was already described as mostly destroyed, and it remains so today.
It is built largely of dressed basalt, the apparent source of which is a settlement located 200 metres to the southeast―Kfar Ya'acov, which was settled from the earliest times―and a few limestone blocks and ashlars that were probably brought from the ruins of the nearby Ateret fortress (Le Chastelet).
The khan―some 64 by 70 metres externally―included halls and rooms that enclosed a fifty metre square central courtyard. Nineteenth century visitors described a rectangular pool, with a column in each of its corners, in the center of the courtyard; nothing remains of this today. The western and southern wings are well preserved but the northern and eastern wings have collapsed. At the time of the British Mandate, the rooms in the southwestern corner of the khan were demolished to make space for what would become known as the "lower" customs house. Between this new building and the rooms in the western wing of the khan, to the north, is a smooth threshold-like stone protruding from the ground, possibly the location of the main entrance to the khan. Four broad halls were preserved in the western wing of the khan, with thick walls and barrel-vaulted ceilings. There is a watch tower in the northeastern corner of the khan. In the southern wing of the khan, four rooms are preserved, the eastern of which―containing a mihrab of limestone ashlars in its southern wall―was used as a Muslim prayer hall. The stables―which contain stone feeding troughs and iron tethering rings―are west of the prayer hall. West again are the remains of a plastered room, which was probably a covered water reservoir.
The Ottomans added a fourth arch to the bridge in 1904 (the 1803 print above shows only the original three of course), but sadly the mediaeval bridge was not preserved but destroyed―only a few stubs of masonry remain on the river bank some 70 metres west of the khan―and a modern bridge was built south of the site in 1934, during the draining of Lake Hula by the Palestine Land Development Company. The current, concrete road bridge dates from 2007.
In the Great War,the "lower" customs house and the courtyard surrounding it held Turkish machine gun positions. On 27 September 1918, during the Palestine Campaign of World War I, at the beginning of the pursuit of the retreating remnants of the Ottoman Yildirim Army Group towards Damascus by the British Army, another battle was fought here, during which the central arch of the bridge was destroyed by the Turkish forces. The bridge was subsequently repaired by ANZAC sappers, flattening the original double pitch of the roadway and making it more accessible for motor transport.
During Operation Markolet (the "Night of the Bridges") between 16 and 17 June 1946, the bridge was destroyed by the Haganah. The Syrians captured the bridge on 11 June 1948, during the War of Independence, but later withdrew as a result of the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and Syria. After the war, the bridge was in the central demilitarised zone established by the armistice agreement.
I already mentioned customs hoses. In point of fact there are two former customs houses near the B'not Ya'acov bridge. The so-called "lower" customs house can be found just above the old bridge, immediately south of the ruins of the khan, where it sat at the Sykes-Picot border between French mandatory Syria and British mandatory Palestine; there was a smaller British police post on the western side of the bridge itself. Though it has the look of an Ottoman style building which could have been built in the late nineteenth century, the "lower" customs house was apparently built around 1935. As mentioned above, it was built in an area created by the demolition of the rooms in the southwestern corner of the khan. Later the building was used as a border post by the Syrians during their rule in the Golan Heights. During the Six-Day War, an Israeli paratrooper brigade captured the area and the Israeli Combat Engineering Corps constructed a double Bailey bridge, upstream of the current road bridge, one crossing of which remains today.
Since the end of the Six Day War, the place―which is surrounded by uncleared mine fields―has been abandoned and neglected, despite being a historic site. A plan to transform it into a hostel and horse farm was put forward in the mid-1980s, but did not progress. In the Yom Kippur War, Syrian forces reached the "upper" customs house and then approached the vicinity of the bridge, but did not cross it.
The "upper" customs house was was established in the 1920s by the French Mandate authorities in Syria and Lebanon―about two kilometers east of the B'not Ya'acov Bridge―to replace the "lower" customs house. The replacement site had more space, boasting an inspection shed, with a number of service and administration buildings around a central building, with stables and a courtyard. The buildings have a definite Bauhaus feel to them, as though transplanted from the "white city" of Tel Aviv of the period. But inside, major differences are evident. The rooms were designed with connecting corridors, monumental doors and massive walls six feet thick, and were much higher than is customary in such buildings, even at a time when ceilings were still high. The building has a piped central heating system and a large and luxurious kitchen. It has been surmised that the reason for such an impressive, well-appointed, culturally-refined "European" structure―which stands out so strangely in the expanse of the basalt Golan―is that French personnel held key roles at this important border crossing. This was in stark contrast to the British, who used the assistance of locals, and made do with an ascetic and functional police post on the B'not Ya'acov bridge itself.
In 1941 , while Syria was controlled by Vichy France , the compound was armed, for fear of a British attack which never came. In the War of Independence it became a base of the Syrian army from which an attack on Mishmar Ha'Yarden was launched on 6 June 1948. Later, Palmach commander Yigal Alon decided to raid the Syrian base at the "upper" customs house, disrupting the Syrian invasion plan. From the War of Independence until 1967, the "upper" customs house served as a base for Syrian outposts in the area, and was the place at which the Israel-Syria Armistice Committee convened.
In the Six Day War the Israeli Air Force bombed the site, which was later occupied by the army. On 15 June 1967, in what came to be known as the Upper Customs House Disaster, when fighters of 13 ("Gideon") Battalion, Golani Brigade, were sent to collect weapons and ammunition from this abandoned Syrian position, an explosion In a bunker, about 100 metres south of the building, killed eleven fighters, nine of whom were buried in a mass grave in the military section of Nahariya cemetery, without their families present at the funeral. Later, the remains of two of the dead who could be identified were transferred to cemeteries in Kiryat Shaul and Mount Herzl. The military police investigated the incident and a military commission of inquiry was established, but the findings have never been made public, and even the bereaved parents did not receive any full explanation of the event. The disaster was only publicised only in 1990, with the publication of a book by historian, Moshe Givati. Over the years, the Ministry of Defense has refused the request of families to commemorate the disaster in the locality. Although the names of the eleven dead were added to a memorial of the 12th Battalion, at Tel Fakhar, they did not participate in this battle.
In 2013, entrepreneur Leo Glazer purchased the "upper" customs house to restore it and establish it as a hotel. Glazer accepted the families' request to place a commemorative plaque in the vicinity once the complex was restored. On 15 June 2017, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the disaster, the Customs Memorial was inaugurated in memory of the eleven who died, in the presence of members of the bereaved families and commanders and soldiers of the 13th Battalion.
Although the complex has been extensively restored, the hotel has not opened to date. Both the "lower" and "upper" customs houses are listed as national heritage sites.
You can read about more sites nearby in my posts on Ateret Fortress and Old Mishmar Ha'Yarden.
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