Ni'ilya

The village was built on flat terrain on the coastal plain, north of an earlier site which had been engulfed by sand dunes. When sand dunes began to surround Ni'ilya on the southern side, the villagers kept their movement in check by planting fruit trees. Secondary roads linked the village to the town of al-Majdal, 3 km to the north-northeast, and to the coastal highway a short distance to the east. In 1596, Ni'ilya was a village in the nahiya of Gaza (liwa' of Gaza), with a population of 440. It paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, sesame, and fruit, as well as on other types of produce and property, such as goats, beehives and vineyards.

In the late nineteenth century, Ni'ilya was surrounded by gardens with olive groves that extended all the way to al-Majdal. Encroaching sand from the coast had been stopped by cactus hedges. Ni'ilya had a trapezoidal configuration, with the long base pointing northeastward. Its houses, some made of adobe and others of cement, were separated by narrow alleys. Houses were also constructed among the fruit orchards. The village expanded along the road that led to al-Majdal. On the southern side it had a mosque that was decorated with inscriptions and was surrounded by fragments of older buildings and burial places. The villagers, who were Muslim, believed that the tombs contained the bodies of people killed in the fighting against the Crusaders. The children attended school in al-Majdal; their own school building, completed in the winter of 1948, never opened because of the war. The village had several little shops. The community relied mainly on agriculture for its livelihood, growing rainfed grain and many varieties of fruit, such as citrus, grapes, figs, and apricots. In 1944/45 a total of 1,084 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas and 2,215 dunums were allotted to cereals; 1,436 dunums were irrigated. The village fruit orchards were irrigated from artesian wells.