'Tower of Aphek'; Ancient Greek: Αφεχού πύργος[8]) stood at the same site as early as the second century BCE, and it was later destroyed by the Romans during the First Jewish–Roman War in 67 CE.

As early as the second century BCE in the Hasmonean period a Judean settlement called Migdal Afek or Aphek (Hebrew: מגדל אפק) sat on the same hill of Mirabel and Majdal Yaba.

[19] Chronicler Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad recorded that in 1191–92, Saladin used the castle as a base for carrying out raids against the Crusaders, although he camped outside of it.

[21] June 1240 marked the arrival of the English crusade led by Richard of Cornwall, brother of the King Henry III of England and brother-in-law of Emperor Frederick II.

Al-Salih Ayyub, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, offered Richard a new treaty to be complementary to the earlier one signed with Theobald IV, Count of Champagne.

[12] Majdal Yaba had become repopulated when Palestine was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century, and by the 1596 tax records, it was a small village in the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Jabal Qubal, part of Sanjak Nablus.

Situated between Deir Ghassaneh in the south and the present Route 5 in the north, and between Majdal Yaba in the west and Jamma'in, Marda and Kifl Haris in the east, this area served, according to historian Roy Marom, "as a buffer zone between the political-economic-social units of the Jerusalem and the Nablus regions.

On the political level, it suffered from instability due to the migration of the Bedouin tribes and the constant competition among local clans for the right to collect taxes on behalf of the Ottoman authorities.

The small column was obliged to retreat with heavy losses, with sixty French troops killed, more than double the number wounded, and Lannes's arm broken.

[29] On 7 November 1850 James Finn, future British Consul to Jerusalem and Palestine, visited the village and found it and the castle in a very dilapidated condition.

[30] On leaving Majdal he descended to Ras al-Ain ("head of the springs") at half an hour's distance, a site which he believed to be identical with the ancient city of Antipatris.

[32] During this time, however, they were embroiled in war with their rival clan, the Qasim, who controlled the Jamma'in East area and also belonged to the Bani Ghazi tribe.

[35] Members of SWP who visited in 1873 reported a large building of "massive masonry", probably a former church, with a side door inscribed in Greek "Memorial of Saint Cerycus".

It stands on high ground above the plain, and contains a house or palace of large size for the Sheikh; it was the seat of a famous family who ruled the neighbourhood.

[45] The capture of Majdal Yaba also led to the control of the hills lying to the north of the operation zone and the springs of the al-Auja river (Arabic: نهر العوجا).

According to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, the Rayyan Fortress still "crowns the site" in addition to the tomb of Sheikh Muhammad Al-Sadiq, and a part of the village cemetery still remains.

[5] The ruins of Mirabel Castle have been recently restored and made accessible as part of the Israeli national park of Migdal Afek.