[citation needed] Today's border crossing sits at the eastern end of a mountain pass used by important roads throughout history.

The medieval hajj road to Mecca coming from Egypt and the Maghreb passed through here, meeting with the one coming from Syria a little to the southeast, at the town of Aylah – modern-day Aqaba, the twin city of Eilat.

The Egyptian military has a base at what is commonly spelled in Egypt as Ras El Naqb and an airport is also located there.

At the end of the 1948–49 Arab–Israeli War, on the last day of Operation Uvda on March 10, 1949, the Negev Brigade captured the abandoned position of the Jordanian Arab Legion in Ras an-Naqb (Hebrew ראס אל-נקב), exactly where the Netafim border crossing is located today.

During the Suez Crisis in 1956, Ras al-Naqb was again one of the strategic positions important for gaining control of the Sinai Peninsula.