New Delhi, July 4 -- At the final whistle at AT&T Stadium on Friday night, Hossam Hassan did not run toward his players. He reached for two flags.

"May God grant them victory. May God have mercy on their martyrs."

The prayer reached Gaza before the celebrations had settled. In a territory where millions live in tents and the wreckage of bombed buildings, people had gathered at makeshift screens to watch Egypt's penalty shootout against Australia in real time. Tamer Nahed, a Gaza resident who described the scene on social media, wrote that thousands came out of tents and destroyed homes, with faces "lit up with smiles" and children with Egyptian flags painted on their cheeks. It was, Nahed wrote, the first World Cup he had followed with ...