Yazur

Yazur (Arabic: يازور‎, Hebrew: יאזוּר‎) was a Palestinian Arab town located 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) east of Jaffa. Mentioned in 7th century BCE Assyrian texts, the village was a site of contestation between Muslims and Crusaders in the 12th-13th centuries.

During the Fatimid period in Palestine, a number of important people were born in Yazur. In modern times the town was the birthplace of Ahmed Jibril, the founder and current head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC).

The Israeli town of Azor now stands on the former town lands of Yazur, which was depopulated and mostly destroyed during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine.

History

Iron Age

The village is mentioned in the annals of the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib (704 – 681 BCE) as Azuro.

Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods

The Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi (1179–1229) described Yazur as a small town that was the birthplace of several important figures during the Fatimid period, most prominent among them, al-Hasan ibn ´Ali al-Yazuri, who became a Fatimid minister in 1050 CE. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE, Muslim and Crusader forces fought for control of the village and it changed hands several times, before finally falling under the control of the Mamluks.