[1] According to Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem since 1967, Israel has confiscated 1,425 dunums of Aqraba and Yanun's land for use for settlements, Israeli Military bases and for the Wall Zone.
[3] According to Kerem Navot, 3,265 dunams of mostly cultivated land were seized per military order T12/72 and transferred to the settlement of Gittit.
[4] Nearby hamlets surround the village and are considered to be natural extensions of Aqraba; they are the khirbets of al-Arama, al-Kroom, Abu ar-Reisa, ar-Rujman, Firas ad-Din and Tell al-Khashaba.
[2][6] Pottery sherds from Iron Age II, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad and Crusader/Ayyubid period,[7] as well as rock-hewn cisterns have been found in Aqraba.
[12] Shihab al-Din Ahmad al-Aqrabani, a follower of the noted Muslim jurist al-Shafi'i, lived and was buried there in 180 AH/796–797 CE.
[13] The 14th-century historian Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani mentions an 8th-century member of the Lakhm tribe from Aqraba as among the transmitters of a hadith (Islamic tradition).
[14] The village mosque is built on the remains of a church, and in the Survey of Western Palestine the Greek inscriptions found there on a lintel decorated by a cross, are described as similar to Crusader-period ones.
[7][10][12] Aqraba, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596 the village was recorded in the Nahiya (Subdistrict) of Jabal Qubal, part of Sanjak Nablus, with a population of 102 households, all Muslim.
They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and bee-hives; vineyards and fruit trees, in addition to occasional revenues, and a press for olive oil or grape syrup; a total of 3,960 akçe.
There is a mosque in the east part of the village, founded on the remains of a Christian church, and a second sacred place (er Rafai) on the south."
[31] In August 2014, the IDF brought in bulldozers to demolish 4 Palestinian homes on the outskirts of the town, in the al-Taweel neighbourhood, claiming that they were built without a permit.
[36] 31% of Aqraba and Yanun land are located in Area B, giving the Palestinian National Authority control over its administration and civil affairs.
The rest, 69%, is in Area C.[37] The town is governed by a municipal council, consisting of eleven members including the mayor.