First, 58 bullet-riddled bodies were discovered in a neighborhood mosque two days after the battle.

"I am against this," said Esmail Ben Ibrahim, an imam at a neighborhood mosque near the center of the city.

Men have been ordered to pray at their neighborhood mosques five times a day.

When he was still a teenager, he grew a long beard, donned robes, began to pray five times a day and go to the neighborhood mosque.

The DRA and local authorities share responsibility for the registration of neighborhood mosques and must agree on the physical location of a given mosque.

Mahmud has led the neighborhood mosque for two years, and a steady stream of men entered his home to congratulate him upon his return from his first hajj.

But those like Prof. Dr. Habib organized food for the poor, distributed blankets, and shepherded people into the protective enclosures of neighborhood mosques.

Aside from daily wheelchair trips to the neighborhood mosque, he ventured out infrequently from his modest Gaza City home.

Along with city's smaller neighborhood mosques, restaurants are a major prayer destination.

The next day, insurgent snipers killed 2 Iraqi security guards near a neighborhood mosque.