Beaufort Castle

Lebanon, Lebanon

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Beaufort Castle, known in Arabic as Qalaat al-Shaqif, is a medieval fortress perched on a rocky hilltop in southern Lebanon’s Arnoun area, about 700 meters above sea level and overlooking the Litani River valley and vast stretches of southern Lebanon, the Lebanese hills, and distant views toward Syria, Palestine, and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The castle was originally built by the Crusaders in 1139 under King Fulk of Jerusalem, who granted the site to the lords of Sidon, and its name “Beaufort” comes from Old French meaning “beautiful fortress”; over the centuries it was expanded and used by Ayyubid, Mamluk, Ottoman, French, and later Palestinian and Lebanese forces, making it one of the best-preserved and most layered medieval castles in the Near East.

In modern history, Beaufort became a key military position during Israel’s 1982 Lebanon war, was held by the Israeli Defense Forces as a base from 1982 until Israel’s withdrawal in 2000, and after 2000 the ruin was opened to visitors and partly restored; in 2025 Lebanon added it to its UNESCO tentative list as part of a nomination for the “Castles of Mount Amel,” and in mid-2026 Israeli forces captured the site again during a broader operation against Hezbollah, reviving its status as a strategically and symbolically important landmark.