Bilbeis

Bilbeis is an ancient fortress city on the eastern edge of the southern Nile Delta in Egypt, in Sharqia Governorate, about 20 kilometres from the city of 10th of Ramadan and roughly 50 kilometres from Cairo. It is the site of the ancient city and former bishopric of Phelbes, now a Latin Catholic titular see. Bilbeis lay on a caravan and invasion route from the east and was conquered by the Arabs in 640; it was besieged in 1164 and again in 1168 in the struggle for the Fatimid vizierate, when the crusader king Amalric of Jerusalem took it and killed its inhabitants. Coptic tradition says it was a stopping place of the Holy Family during the Flight into Egypt. Napoleon ordered its fortifications rebuilt in 1798. The city is small but densely populated and houses the Egyptian Air Force Academy complex.