[5] During the Mandate period the village was inspected by the Department of Antiquities, and a number of ancient remains were noted, in addition to two Arabic inscriptions built into the mosque.

[6] In the cemetery located just south of Bayt Tima lies a worn mosaic pavement, suggesting an Ancient Roman or Byzantine presence at the site.

The inhabitants paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, fruit, almonds, sesame, beehives, and goats; a total of 21,200 akçe.

[8] Marom and Taxel have shown that during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, nomadic economic and security pressures led to settlement abandonment around Majdal ‘Asqalān, and the southern coastal plain in general.

[5] According to the Jaffa-based newspaper Filastin, a "Zionist attempt" to infiltrate Bayt Tima was recorded as early as February 1948, preceding the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

But the occupation was short-lived, since Israeli forces also threatened Bayt Tima a month later, according to Egyptian writer Muhammad Abd al-Munim.

He writes that at the end of the first truce, in early July, the village was held by Palestinian militiamen and Israeli forces encroached on Bayt Tima, occupying the hills overlooking it.

Its defenders were reinforced by a Saudi Arabian company fighting on the southern front and Bayt Tima supposedly remained in Arab hands throughout the second truce.