Sunday, August 11, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
CNN says:
Gaza Civil Defense said people were performing dawn prayers at the Al-Tabi’in compound in the Al-Daraj neighborhood in the eastern part of Gaza City when it was hit overnight into Saturday.
NBC says:
The strikes hit the Tabeen school in Gaza City, including the mosque inside it, during dawn prayers.
BBC says:
The building also served as a mosque and the Israeli strike hit during dawn prayers, witnesses said.
The Independent reports:
At just past 4am on Saturday, Palestinian families displaced from other parts of Gaza, gathered for Fajr prayers at dawn inside al-Tabaeen school that had turned into a makeshift shelter in Gaza City.Just before prayers were about to begin, the Israeli missiles tore through the congregation leaving bodies of worshipers “cut to pieces”, witnesses told The Independent.
Wikipedia Arabic says that the airstrike happened after 5 AM, and quotes one person saying it happened after the dawn (Fajr) prayers.
Before the Fajr prayer? During? After? Which is it?
According to multiple sources, the Fajr prayer time would have been 4:37 AM on Saturday in Gaza. It is a short prayer, which only takes 10-15 minutes in a mosque, and about 3-4 minutes when praying individually.
If the strike was shortly after 4 AM or shortly after 5 AM, no one would have been praying. The Gaza media office, health ministry and "eyewitnesses" are lying.
The Independent seems to have used the wrong time zone or guessed at summer time, since the airstrike was around 5 AM, not 4 AM. The Fajr prayers, assuming that they were timed to start at the earliest and most favorable time, would have been over for at least 10 minutes at the time of the strike.
People were not praying then. Chances are there was a prayer session, it ended, most people left, the terrorists then gathered in the mosque to strategize, and Israel chose that moment to hit them.
