al-Batani al-Gharbi

The village stood on flat terrain on the southern coastal plain. It was one of two villages named al-Batani. Its twin, al-Batani al-Sharqi, lay to the east. The names of the two villages identified one as 'eastern' (sharqi) and the other as 'western' (gharbi). A military airport was built during the Mandate on flat land about 2 km south of the village. Secondary roads linked al-Batani al-Gharbi to adjacent villages, including Yasur and Isdud on the coastal highway. The earliest available reference to al-Batani indicates that it was originally founded as a 'ranch' for the first Umayyad caliph, Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan (A.D. 661–680)

In the late nineteenth century, the village of al-Batani al-Gharbi was situated on low ground and had a rectangular shape, extending along a southeast–northwest line. Construction initially expanded along the two short sides of the rectangle, then along the roads to other villages. The village houses, made of adobe brick with wood and cane roofs, were built close together, separated by narrow alleys. Along with a pond and a few wells, scattered patches of garden could be seen on the village lands. The two al-Batanis shared an elementary school that was opened in 1947 with an initial enrollment of 119 students. The population was Muslim, and the village had its own mosque as well as a number of small shops. The villagers worked mainly in agriculture, cultivating, among other crops, grain and citrus. In 1944/45 a total of 170 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas and 4,152 dunums were allotted to cereals; 95 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. Agriculture was both rainfed and irrigated from wells that were scattered across the landscape. These wells also supplied water for domestic use. In addition to crop cultivation, the community engaged in animal husbandry and poultry raising.