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Mass wedding in Gaza

February 17, 2014 at 1:49 am

EXCLUSIVE PICTURES

A mass wedding ceremony organised by the Islamic National Committee for Social Solidarity has been held in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. The ceremony was funded by the UAE’s Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Aal Nahyan Foundation.

Such wedding ceremonies in Gaza are held as a way of mitigating the high cost of individual weddings and are subsidised by international Islamic organisations and philanthropic individuals. Each couple at the ceremony in Rafah was also given $4,000 from a fund provided by the Foundation for humanitarian work.


436 couples thanked the Islamic National Committee and the Sheikh Khalifa Foundation for their blessed efforts. They were particularly grateful given the difficult current conditions that many young people find themselves in, and the prohibitive financial burden of renting and furnishing accommodation.

The family and friends of the couples expressed great happiness at seeing their loved ones joined in matrimony and the event was attended by thousands of well-wishers. The organisers of the event say that there is scope to hold similar, much larger ceremonies in the future, which could perhaps marry up to 1,000 couples at a time.

The Islamic National Committee has brought together corporate figures, deputies, representatives of the various factions and of Islamic and national action groups as an embodiment of national unity and to look jointly into the possibilities for residents of Gaza to share their problems and concerns.

MEMO Photographer: Mohammed Asad