{"id":22272,"date":"2018-11-18T11:22:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-18T11:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22272"},"modified":"2018-11-18T11:22:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T11:22:51","slug":"a-palestinian-syrian-love-story-crushed-by-israeli-air-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22272","title":{"rendered":"A Palestinian-Syrian love story crushed by Israeli air strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gaza Strip<\/strong>\u00a0– When Palestinians ventured out of their homes on Tuesday, following Israel’s latest round of air strikes on Gaza,<\/span>\u00a0they noticed an extraordinary scene near the bombed-out remains of the\u00a0al-Rahma building.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hanging in the bedroom of a partially-destroyed apartment was a\u00a0<\/span>wedding dress, covered in dirt and punctured with shrapnel.<\/p>\n

As crowds grew and looked on in amazement, little did they know that the dress carried a five-year story of love, tragedy and determination.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Fadi al-Ghazali, a 22-year-old from Gaza, met\u00a0Yara al-Zoubi, a 21-year-old from Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on Facebook, a\u00a0<\/span>woman who he says he immediately fell in love with.<\/p>\n

“I knew she was my soulmate from the first moment,” Fadi told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

“She has seen things the human mind cannot imagine. I had also survived all three wars on Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014. So, I understood her.”<\/p>\n

Despite facing geographical and political obstructions, the couple were\u00a0determined to meet each another.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“Our dream was to get together, a dream that everyone mocked because I live in the besieged Gaza Strip and she was living in war-torn Syria,” he said. “It was impossible.”<\/p>\n

Within a short time, Fadi proposed to Yara, and his family in turn contacted hers to arrange their engagement.<\/p>\n

“I asked her parents for their blessing and they welcomed me into the family with open arms.”<\/p>\n

Everything we needed was ready; the house, the furniture, the wedding dress … We were only waiting for my birthday to be the luckiest couple people to ever walk this earth.<\/p>\n

Fadi al-Ghazali, groom<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

‘A miracle’<\/h2>\n

Fadi spent the next five years working as a confectioner to pay for their wedding and furnish their home.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, after several requests, Yara was finally granted an approval by Egyptian authorities to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing.<\/p>\n

A territory of more than two million people, Gaza has been under a devastating Israeli-imposed blockade for the past 11 years, which has severely restricted the movement of Palestinians in and out of it.<\/p>\n

Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the enclave in 2005 but, citing security concerns, maintains tight control of its land and sea borders.<\/p>\n

Egypt also restricts movement in and out of Gaza through its border.<\/p>\n

“It took a miracle to get my fiancee out of Syria, let alone into Gaza,” Fadi said. “We achieved the impossible.<\/p>\n

“When she arrived at Rafah, I was so happy that I felt like I was flying, and people were amazed by our story that they celebrated us all the way to our home.”<\/p>\n

Yara’s family were unable to make it to Gaza for the wedding, due to Israeli and Egyptian restrictions on freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian Territories.<\/p>\n

According to Fadi, Yara carried her $2,000 wedding dress all the way from Syria.<\/p>\n

Following Yara’s arrival, the excited couple spent the next few days shopping for their wedding which was expected to be held on November 18 to coincide with Fadi’s 22nd birthday.<\/p>\n

“Everything we needed was ready; our home, the furniture, the wedding dress … We were only waiting for my birthday to be the luckiest couple people to ever walk this earth,” he said.<\/p>\n

The bride stayed at Fadi’s mother’s place, while the groom waited in their future home as they were both anxiously looking forward to their wedding day.<\/p>\n

However, on Monday, Fadi’s family received a call around midnight that the adjacent building to their home was going to be targeted by Israeli air raids.<\/p>\n

\n
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<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fadi looks out from his devastated apartment at rubble from the al-Rahma building[Walid Mahmoud\/Al Jazeera]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

‘Israel shattered our dreams’<\/h2>\n

Fadi’s family and bride ran to seek shelter at his aunt’s house, when the al-Rahma charity’s five-storey building, next to Fadi’s home was destroyed by missiles fired from the sky.<\/p>\n

When the family returned to the area the next morning, they found their home in ruins.<\/p>\n

“My fiancee and I were shocked. Our dream was shattered by an Israeli strike that raided our home and caused major destruction to it,” Fadi said.<\/p>\n

“All of the windows were broken, our furniture and some outer walls were reduced to rubble, and the wedding dress was torn apart.<\/p>\n

“All the money that I had been saving up for years is now gone,” he said, adding that the damages amounted to more than 5,000 Jordanian Dinars ($7,000).<\/p>\n

According to Fadi, Yara spent the entire night crying and suffered a panic attack when she saw the devastation.<\/p>\n

“She told me ‘all my life, I have been running away from war, but it kept following me’.”<\/p>\n

Last year, Yara’s hometown of Khan Sheikhoun fell victim to a chemical attack that claimed the lives of at least 83 people, a third of them children.<\/p>\n

When local residents heard Yara’s story and saw what happened to her home and dress, the entire community banded together.<\/p>\n

A wedding planner, a hotelier, a florist, photographers, tailors and others offered their services for free.<\/p>\n

A group of philanthropists gave them gifts to ensure their wedding would happen on time.<\/p>\n

However, with Gaza’s future still uncertain and violence a frequent reality, the couple said they were afraid of resuming their wedding arrangements only to wake up and find it all under rubble and destruction again.<\/p>\n

\n
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<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Palestinians in the besieged strip have banded together with a wedding planner, hotelier and florist offering their services for free\u00a0[Walid Mahmoud\/Al Jazeera]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gaza Strip\u00a0– When Palestinians ventured out of their homes on Tuesday, following Israel’s latest round of air strikes on Gaza,\u00a0they noticed an extraordinary scene near the bombed-out remains of the\u00a0al-Rahma building. Hanging in the bedroom of a partially-destroyed apartment was a\u00a0wedding dress, covered in dirt and punctured with shrapnel. As crowds grew and looked on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}