During the Arab–Israeli conflict and the Syrian Civil War, it has served as a highly strategic military position because it overlooks wide areas of the Golan Heights and Hauran regions.

[1] Like the neighboring hills, Tell al-Hara belongs to the range of extinct volcanoes of the Jaydur region and a wide crater opens at its summit.

[8] It was named after the Ghassanid king al-Harith and was referred to as "Ḥārith al-Jawlān" by the contemporary Arab poets al-Nabigha and Hassan ibn Thabit.

[4] In the 1890s, the German archaeologist Gottlieb Schumacher noted that the tomb of a certain Muslim saint, Umar al-Shahid, "crowned" Tell al-Hara.

[2] He also noted that at the hill's western foot were the ruins of a Christian monastery known as Deir al-Saj, which he suspected was of Ghassanid origin.