Though defended by the Egyptian Army, al-Jura was nevertheless captured by Israel's Givati Brigade in a November 4, 1948, offensive as part of Operation Yoav.

[9] Marom and Taxel have shown that during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, nomadic economic and security pressures led to settlement abandonment around Majdal ‘Asqalān, and the southern coastal plain in general.

[8] The Syrian Sufi teacher and traveller Mustafa al-Bakri al-Siddiqi (1688–1748/9) visited Al-Jura in the first half of the eighteenth century, before leaving for Hamama.

[11] In 1863 the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village, which he called Djoura, and found it to have three hundred inhabitants.

He further noted that he could see numerous antiquities, taken from the ruined city, and that the inhabitants of the village grew handsome fruit trees, as well as flowers and vegetables.

[13][14] In the late nineteenth century, the village of Al-Jura was situated on flat ground bordering on the ruins of ancient Ascalon.

[19] In addition to agriculture, residents practiced animal husbandry which formed was an important source of income for the town.

[25][26][27] It was considered the most important Shi'a shrine in Palestine,[28] but was destroyed by the Israeli army in 1950, a year after hostilities ended, on the orders of Moshe Dayan.