The old arched stone bridge marked the northernmost limit of Napoleon's campaign in Syria,[3][4] and was the site of the Battle of Jisr Benat Yakub during World War I.

[5] Archaeological excavations at the prehistoric Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site have revealed evidence of human habitation in the area, from as early as 750,000 years ago.

[6] Archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem claim that the site provides evidence of "advanced human behavior" half a million years earlier than has previously been estimated as possible.

[9] According to the archaeologists Paul Pettitt and Mark White, the site has produced the earliest widely accepted evidence for the use of fire, dated approximately 790,000 years ago.

When Humphrey II of Toron was besieged in the city of Banyas in 1157, King Baldwin III of Jerusalem was able to break the siege, only to be ambushed at Jacob's Ford in June of that year.

Baldwin allowed the Templars to build Chastelet castle overlooking Jacob's Ford known to the Arabs as Qasr al-'Ata[16] commanding the road from Quneitra to Tiberias.

In the late Mamluk period, Sefad became a principal town and Baibars' postal road from Cairo to Damascus was extended with a branch that went through the north of Palestine.

[22] During the Egyptian campaign of 1799, Napoleon sent his cavalry commander, general Murat, to defend the bridge, as a measure of preempting reinforcement from Damascus being sent to Akko during the siege laid by the French.

[23] Murat occupied nearby Safed and Tiberias, as well as the bridge[24] and, by relying on the superior quality of French troops, managed to defeat Turkish units far outnumbering him.

In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) also noted about Jisr Benat Yakub: "The bridge itself appears to be of later date than the Crusader period.