The ancient mound of ʿAfula, known as Tel ʿAfula, is close to the city center, west of Route 60 and south of Ussishkin Street. Very little of the initial six-acre tell remains due to construction work done in this area since the
British Mandate period. The southern peak of the mound is the better preserved part. It was once widely considered to be the biblical site of
Ophrah, the hometown of the
judge Gideon, but contemporary scholars generally disagree with this supposition. Archaeological finds date from the
Chalcolithic through the
Byzantine period, followed by remains from the Crusader and Mamluk periods.
Bronze Age to Byzantine period ʿAfula is possibly the place of
Bronze Age ʿOphlah, mentioned in the lists of Pharaoh
Thutmose III.
Zev Vilnay suggested to identify Afula with biblical (
Iron Age II)
Ophel, mentioned in
2 Kings. After the destruction of the
Kingdom of Israel, the area continued to be inhabited and excavations have revealed artifacts from the periods of
Persian and
Roman rule. The first excavations at Tel ʿAfula, carried out in 1948, found Late Chalcolithic–
Early Bronze Age remains. Tombs from the Early Bronze Age,
Middle Bronze Age II,
Late Bronze Age–
Iron Age I and Roman period were discovered near the municipal water tower. Archaeologists discovered the Crusader-Mamluk fortress on the southern peak of the tell, a Byzantine olive oil press and evidence of an Early Bronze Age settlement near the northern peak. In 1950–1951, excavations on the northwestern slope of the peak revealed a pottery workshop for
Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware from Middle Bronze Age II and another pottery workshop from Middle Bronze Age I. In 2012, excavations were conducted by the
Israel Antiquities Authority on the southern peak of Tel ʿAfula where the Crusader-Mamluk fortress is located. Due to construction activity from the 1950s, settlement layers on the tell may have been destroyed. Only meager remnants were found, indicative of a settlement from Early Bronze Age I and the Roman period. Pottery from Early Bronze Age III, Iron Age I and a single
Hellenistic Attic fragment indicate settlement on the tell in these periods. Fragments of glazed bowls from the 13th century (Mamluk period) were found along the southern edge of the excavation.
Crusader/Ayyubid and Mamluk periods fortress in Afula. Note the
spolia:
Roman sarcophagi as the top layer. At the centre of Tel ʿAfula stand the remains of a 19-metre square fortress from the
Mamluk period, possibly first built during the
Crusader period. The gate is dated based on pottery findings to the Mamluk period (13th–14th centuries CE), but as of the end of the 2017 excavation campaign it could not be determined when fortress itself was built, since it is perfectly possible that just the gate was renovated in the Mamluk period; the square shape and the use of Roman sarcophagi as building stones is closely resembling the
Crusader tower at Sepphoris.
Late Ottoman period A map by
Pierre Jacotin from
Napoleon's invasion of 1799 showed this place, named as
Afouleh in a French transliteration of the Arabic. In 1816,
James Silk Buckingham passed by and described
Affouli as being built on rising ground and containing only a few dwellings. He noted several other nearby settlements in sight, all populated by Muslims. In 1838,
Edward Robinson described both ʿAfula and the adjacent
El Fuleh as "deserted".
William McClure Thomson, in a book published in 1859, noted that ʿAfula and the adjacent
El Fuleh were "both now deserted, though both were inhabited twenty-five years ago when I first passed this way." Thomson blamed their desertion on the
Bedouin. In 1875,
Victor Guérin described ʿAfula as a village on a small hill overlooking a little plain. The houses were built of
adobe and various other materials. Around the
well, which Guérin thought was probably ancient, he noticed several broken sarcophagi serving as
troughs. In 1882, the
Palestine Exploration Fund's
Survey of Western Palestine described El ʿAfula as a small adobe village in the plain, supplied by two wells.
Gottlieb Schumacher, as part of surveying for the construction of the
Jezreel Valley railway, noted in 1900 that it consisted of 50-55 huts and had 200 inhabitants. North of the village was a grain stop, belonging to the
Sursocks. In 1904, the Ottoman authorities inaugurated the Jezreel Valley railway, at first operating between
Haifa and
Beysan via ʿAfula and soon extended to
Dera'a. Work eventually continued with an extension towards Jerusalem, the connection to
Jenin being completed in 1913.
First World War During the
Great War, ʿAfulah was a major communications hub. In 1917, when Colonel
Richard Meinertzhagen from the British intelligence established contact with the
Nili Jewish spy network in Palestine, a German Jewish doctor stationed at al ʿAfulah railway junction provided the British with valuable reconnaissance reports on Ottoman and German troop movements southwards. With the advance of General
Edmund Allenby's British forces into Ottoman Palestine, al ʿAfulah was captured by the
4th Cavalry Division of the
Desert Mounted Corps, during the cavalry phase of the
Battle of Sharon in September 1918.
British Mandate According to the
British Mandate's
1922 census of Palestine,
Affuleh had 563 inhabitants; 471 Muslims, 62 Christians, 28 Jews and 2 followers of the
Baháʼí Faith; 61 of the Christians were Orthodox, while one was
Melkite.
Jewish Afula (est. 1925) In 1925, the area was acquired with money from the
American Zion Commonwealth as part of the
Sursock Purchase. The Arab tenant farmers were given four years during which they could either buy the land or leave, in the meantime having the right to cultivate it. Jews began settling in Afula shortly after as the town developed, with many American and
Polish Jews purchasing the parcels. Many of the Polish Jews who bought land in the town perished in the
Holocoaust, and were therefore unable to develop their plots. Nearby land had been purchased in a similar manner in 1909 or 1910, when
Yehoshua Hankin, in his first major purchase in the Jezreel Valley, bought 10,000 dunams (10 km2) of land on which
Merhavia and
Tel Adashim were to be built. By the
1931 census, the population had increased to 874; with 786 Jews, 86 Muslims, nine Christians, and three classified as "no religion", in a total of 236 houses. map of ʿAfula and Merhavya In a
1945 survey, the population of ʿAfula was estimated at 2300 Jews and ten Muslims. The town had a total of 18,277
dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 145 dunams of land was used to cultivate citrus and bananas, 347 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 15,103 for cereals, while 992 dunams were built-up land. During this time, the community was served by the
Jezreel Valley Railway, a side branch of the larger
Hejaz Railway. Since 1913 it had also been the
terminus station of the branch connecting it to
Jenin and later also to
Nablus. Sabotage actions of Jewish underground militias in
1945,
1946 and shortly before the
1948 Arab–Israeli War rendered first the connection to Jenin, then progressively the entire Valley Railway,
inoperable. File:עפולה - בית השיך-JNF043396.jpeg|Afula, Beit HaSheikh ("House of the Sheikh") 1925 File:מראה עפולה העמק יזרעאל-JNF022193.jpeg|Afula 1928 File:מלון שפירא, בית המלון הראשון בעפולה בעמק יזרעאל-JNF022260.jpeg|Afula, Shapira Hotel 1928 File:תחנת הרכבת בעפולה בעמק יזרעאל-JNF022273.jpeg|Afula railway station 1930 File:AN AERIAL PHOTO OF THE SETTLEMENT AFULA. צילום אויר של היישוב עפולה.D332-060.jpg|Afula 1937 File:יחידות דיור של פועלים בעפולה-JNF014123.jpeg|Workers housing, Afula 1946
State of Israel from
Beisan on leave in Afula in 1948
Railroad (1948-49; 2010s) Repairs to the Jezreel Valley Railway after 1948 restored service to
Haifa, but only until 1949 when it was abandoned. In 2011, construction began on a large-scale project to build a new
standard gauge railway from Haifa to
Beit She'an with stations in
Afula and other towns, along roughly the same route as the historical valley railway.
Israel Railways began passenger service on the
new line on October 16, 2016.
Terror attacks (1990s-2000s) Due to Afula's proximity to the
West Bank, it has been a target for
Palestinian political violence. On 6 April 1994, the
Afula Bus suicide bombing killed five people in the center of Afula. In the
Afula axe attack in November 1994, a 19-year-old female soldier was attacked and murdered by an axe-wielding Arab
Hamas member. During the
Second Intifada, Afula was the target of a
suicide attack on a bus on 5 March 2002, in which one person died and several others were injured at Afula's central bus station. In the
Afula mall bombing on 19 May 2003, a female suicide bomber
blew herself up at the Amakim mall, killing three and wounding 70. This attack was claimed by the
Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine and the
Fatah movement's
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
2006 Lebanon War On 17 July 2006, during the
2006 Lebanon War,
Hezbollah fired
Katyusha rockets at Afula, one of the southernmost rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon. Six people were treated for shock as a result of the attack. On 28 July, a rocket landed causing a fire. The rocket carried of explosives.
Recent development plans In September 2016, it was announced that seven new neighborhoods would be built, doubling the city's population.
"Afula as a Jewish-only city" grassroots campaigns In 2015, a tender of the
Israel Land Authority for 27 lots in Afula was won by 45 Arab
Palestinian citizens. Following the results, a group of
Jewish residents petitioned to cancel the tender, formally citing price coordination but also admitting that the arrival of "a large group of
Arab citizens coming to live here together" raised sensitivities in the neighborhood. In another case in 2018, a Jewish homeowner in Afula refused to rent an apartment to an Arab woman. The Nazareth District Court ruled that the refusal constituted unlawful
discrimination on national grounds and ordered him to pay 30,000 NIS in damages, noting that despite the landlord’s claim that he held no racist views, his actions demonstrated anti-Arab bias. Reports in the
Israeli press have highlighted the persistence of
anti-Arab sentiment in the city. Former Afula Mayor Avi Elkabetz joined the protest and said, "the residents of Afula
don't want a mixed city, but rather a Jewish city, and it's their right. This is not racism." The land tender sparked protests by local Jewish residents who declared their opposition to Arabs settling in the city. Demonstrators warned that the influx of Arab families would turn the neighborhood into "a village… soon there will be a mosque and a school… where have we come to?" and claimed this would drive Jews to leave Afula. Civil society groups condemned the protests as discriminatory and urged the municipality to respect equal rights for all citizens. On 13 June 2018, a demonstration was held in Afula against the sale of an apartment to Arabs, joined not only by residents but also by the city’s deputy mayor. In response, the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) sent a letter to the mayor of Afula expressing strong opposition to institutional discrimination, calling on him to take a firm public stance against anti-Arab bias and to address stereotypes and prejudice through educational initiatives for youth in the city. Additional coverage of these campaigns and the city council’s involvement appeared in the Israeli media. In June 2019, a demonstration happened in protest against a house being sold to an Arab family, joined by Afula's mayor, Avi Elkabetz, who had run for office on a platform of "preserving the Jewish character of Afula." == Demographics ==