Ain al-Habis Cave Castle

Also known as Ayn al-Habis, Cave de Suet, Habis Jaldak, 'Ain Habis

Ain al-Habis — known to the Crusaders as Cave de Suet — is one of the most unusual fortifications of the Latin Kingdom: a true cave castle, cut directly into the cliff face of the Yarmuk gorge in the southern Golan Heights. The complex consists of three storeys of natural and enlarged caves linked by internal staircases, with a spring inside the rock that made it almost impossible to starve out. Built or refortified in the twelfth century to control the rich grain country east of the Sea of Galilee and to tax caravans moving down the Yarmuk corridor toward the Jordan, it changed hands repeatedly between the Franks of the Principality of Galilee and the Damascene atabegs. The Franks briefly recovered it in 1182 in a celebrated siege documented by Muslim chroniclers, before Saladin's armies took it permanently after Hattin in 1187. The remains of the cave system, the cisterns, and the rock-cut stairs survive today and are accessible from the Israeli side of the Yarmuk.

Coordinates: 32.7250°, 35.7220°

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