Community | October 07, 2009 | 10 comments

Love in Gaza: A Palestinian couple marries against all odds

source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,653777,00.html

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afitzgerald
Der Spiegel has a great story of a Palestinian couple, he in Gaza and she in the West Bank, who came together despite the blockade and travel restrictions. How? The bride crawled through a smugglers’ tunnel out of Egypt.

"When Mohammed Warda first took his bride in his arms she looked “as if she had just stepped out of a grave that was filled with earth.” He had spent an hour sitting nervously by a big hole in the ground in the Gaza Strip, while May crawled backwards through the tunnel, keeping her eyes closed because of the sand that trickled from the roof. Her groom had to pay $1,500 (€1,021) for her to be smuggled through a tunnel from the Egyptian side of the border to the Gaza Strip. And 23-year-old May knew the whole time that the risky undertaking could cost her her life."

These tunnels serve in many ways as a lifeline for Gazans to the rest of the world, providing them with many valuable supplies that the Israeli blockade won’t let through. They’re also used to smuggle weapons to resistance groups. Zouheir al-Najjar a Gazan and contributor to Collective Journalism made the journey himself (Video in the comments).
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10 comments // Love in Gaza: A Palestinian couple marries against all odds

  • freecrack
  • markbt116
    • 0
      markbt116  

    • Emilio,

      The Israeli blockade has one intention: to make life more secure for ordinary israelis. It is not to make life hard for Palestinians. They, with the help of other arab nations, have done to themselves.

      Second, there is no pretense of equal advantages in war. How can a war be won if both sides have equal advantages? In every war, the winning side exploited some advantage.

      Third, Israelis suffer from the fear of Palestinian attacks on a daily basis. No, Israelis don't have to crawl through tunnels to get married, but they must postpone their lives for years while they serve in the military in the name of self defense.

      Fourth, to you and afitzgerald who posted this, Why have you left out and failed to mention the following passage from this article:

      "First of all there were the Egyptians who were trying to cut off the tunnels, sometimes by throwing gas grenades down the shafts. Dozens of people working on the tunnels had been killed in recent months by these methods."

    • 2 years ago
  • markbt116
  • elspeth
  • tawnybabe
  • emilio
    • 0
      emilio  

    • Heartwarming and breaking at the same time. I couldn't imagine taking such risks for love (leaving a recently widowed mother, a secure job, and smuggling yourself through an underground tunnel for four days) only to find that you and your new spouse have zero opportunities to better your lives.

      Gaza has the highest unemployment rate in the world and the Israeli blockcade is intentionally making living conditions more and more harsh for Palestinians.

      This couple is an example of the dying hope of the Palestinian people. They have suffered for many years under the pretense that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a war with even advantages. The struggle of this couple is evidence otherwise. No Israeli couple must go to these lengths to make a marriage happen.

    • 2 years ago
  • freecrack
  • masterzip
  • afitzgerald
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