[6] At 5:20 pm on January 3, the IDF attacked the western entrance of Ibrahim al-Maqadma Mosque in Beit Lahiya at the time of Maghrib prayer.

[9][11] The IDF Spokesperson's Unit published videos showing secondary explosions that occurred after they had targeted mosques with missiles, alleging these were caused by the weapons and ammunition hidden inside of them.

The South African jurist Richard Goldstone, who led the fact-finding mission, said "Assuming that weapons were stored in the mosque, it would not be a war crime to bomb it at night...

Jonathan Halevi asserted that in the course of the inquiry the commission did not consider other possibilities, such as a drone strike aimed at a group of militants nearby that could be supported by the fact that the blast hit just outside the mosque.

[15] He also stated that "[a]n examination of freely accessible Palestinian sources shows that the casualties in this incident were terrorist operatives", specifically naming 7 out of the 15 dead.

[6] The report also says that the mosque had unexpectedly combined its sunset and evening prayers on the day of the incident, and it is possible that this detail was not known to the IDF at the moment of the strike, added Halevi.