query: country county of jaffa and ascalon
supports: The First Crusade (10951099) was the first of a number of crusades that attempted to capture the Holy Land, called by Pope Urban II in 1095. It started as a widespread pilgrimage in western Christendom and ended as a military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Land taken in the Muslim conquests of the Levant (632661), ultimately resulting in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099.  The Southern Levant is a geographical region encompassing the southern half of the Levant. It corresponds approximately to modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan; some definitions also include southern Lebanon, southern Syria and/or the Sinai Peninsula. As a strictly geographical description, it is sometimes used by archaeologists and historians to avoid the religious and political connotations of other names for the area. Jerusalem , is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. One of the oldest cities in the world, Jerusalem was named as ""Urusalima"" on ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets, probably meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity, during the early Canaanite period (approximately 2400 BCE). During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE (Iron Age II), and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah. It is considered a holy city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was a crusader state established in the Southern Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods. The sometimes so-called First Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187, when it was almost entirely overrun by Saladin. After the subsequent Third Crusade, the kingdom was re-established in Acre in 1192, and lasted until that city's destruction in 1291. This second kingdom is sometimes called the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Kingdom of Acre, after its new capital. An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (/ ALA-LC: "al ad-Dn Ysuf ibn Ayyb"; / ALC-LC: "Selahedînê Eyûbî"), known as Saladin (1137  4 March 1193), was the first sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin led the Muslim military campaign against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, his sultanate included Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen and other parts of North Africa. Yavne, historically also known as Jabneh or Jamnia, is a city in the Central District of Israel. In it had a population of . The Third Crusade (11891192), also known as The Kings' Crusade, was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin (al ad-Dn Ysuf ibn Ayyb). The campaign was largely successful, capturing the important cities of Acre and Jaffa, and reversing most of Saladin's conquests, but it failed to capture Jerusalem, the emotional and spiritual motivation of the Crusade. The double County of Jaffa and Ascalon was one of the four major seigneuries comprising the major crusader state , the Kingdom of Jerusalem , according to 13th - century commentator John of Ibelin . Ibelin was a castle in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century (at modern Yavne), which gave its name to an important family of nobles.
candidates: egypt israel jerusalem judah kingdom of jerusalem north africa palestine syria world
answer: palestine