A Palestinian couple has tied the knot at a school housing refugees in the Nuseirat camp near Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Friday, as displaced people sang and celebrated, the Anadolu news agency reported.
Groom Mohammed Radi and bride Hanan Abu Tarboush ignored relentless Israeli attacks for a day and insisted on celebrating their wedding, spreading joy in the school despite all the suffering its residents had experienced.
The Nuseirat refugee camp has witnessed numerous massacres throughout the Gaza war, which is now in its eleventh month.
Last June the Israeli army killed at least 276 people there while carrying out a raid which it claimed was to rescue captives held by Hamas.
The twentysomething couple took refuge at the Nuseirat school after their homes were bombed and, like thousands of other displaced people at the school, they currently have nowhere else to go.
As Israeli planes buzzed overhead and explosions could be heard in the distance, the sound of wedding drums and Palestinian patriotic and traditional songs rang out to celebrate the couple.
The only place they have to call home after the wedding is a small corner of a classroom.
Palestinians at the school carried Mohammed Radi on their shoulders to celebrate his wedding, while children gathered round.
“We held the wedding at the school because we wanted to be happy despite the constant pain and the war. We will defy the occupation with the smiles of our children,” Radi said.
Many other Palestinian couples have held weddings in Gaza despite the Israeli war.
Around 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million population have been displaced by the war, which has so far killed at least 40,939 people and injured 94,616 others.
