The Yarkon River, also Yarqon River or Jarkon River (, Nahal HaYarkon, , Nahr al-Auja), is a river in central Israel. The source of the Yarkon ("Greenish" in Hebrew) is at Tel Afek (Antipatris), north of Petah Tikva. It flows west through Gush Dan and Tel Aviv's Yarkon Park into the Mediterranean Sea. Its Arabic name, al-Auja, means "the meandering". The Yarkon is the largest coastal river in Israel, at 27.5 km in length. History Iron Age The Yarkon was the northern boundary of the territory of the Philistines. During the time of the Assyrian rule over the country, a fortress was built in a site known today as Tell Qudadi, on the northern bank of the river, next to its estuary. Ottoman Period The Yarkon formed the southern border of the vilayet of Beirut during the late Ottoman period. World War I The Arabic name of the river, al-Auja ("the meandering one"), is shared with Wadi Auja, another small stream that flows into the Jordan Valley north of Jericho. During World War I this coincidence led to the term of "the line of the two Aujas" referring to a strategic line connecting the two river valleys and taken by the expeditionary forces of General Allenby during his early 1918 advance against the Ottoman army. The mouth of the river was conquered already during the late-1917 Battle of Jaffa. Mandate period In the Mandatory period, the British government granted a number of concessions, including to Pinhas Rutenberg's Jaffa Electric Company exclusive rights to generate, distribute, and sell electricity in the District of Jaffa. These rights were delivered through the “Auja Concession”, which was formally signed on September 12, 1921. The Concession had authorized the company to generate electricity by means of hydroelectric turbines that would exploit the water power of the Yarkon River to supply electricity to the administrative District of Jaffa. The district comprised Jaffa, the oldest and at the time still most important town in the area, the fast growing town of Tel Aviv north of it, and other smaller locations. Yet the plan to generate electricity by hydroelectric means never materialized, and instead the company designed and built a powerhouse that produced electricity by means of diesel-fueled engines. State of Israel The river became increasingly polluted after the 1950s, many blaming this on the construction of the Reading Power Station which is situated near its mouth. When