It is the wedding season in Gaza. Every day last week the streets were jammed by wedding convoys, up to 20 a day. You hear them before you see them – the procession is led by a trailer-load of musicians, and then comes the bridal car adorned in flowers and ribbons, followed by busloads of whooping relatives. Over-excited men may open a car window and fire a few pistol rounds into the air. All in good taste according to Gazan wedding etiquette.
It is in stark contrast to the intifada years of endless funeral processions. Predictions of a bloodbath in Gaza during the Israeli disengagement have not come true.
The next hurdle is how the Palestinian political factions will co-operate over distributing the former settlement land, a potentially explosive issue, only partially tackled by yesterday’s announcement by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that all land will be taken under government control until ownership issues are settled.
For now, love is in the air. That and an Israeli observation balloon hovering over Gaza, taking pictures of everything below.
The wedding processions pass under flags and banners celebrating liberation, however limited. ‘Gaza is the start,’ proclaim Hamas banners: ‘Next Jerusalem and the West Bank.’
But for now there is the double wedding in the El Tartori wedding hall on Gaza’s beachfront. The Tafeshs are marrying the Badawis. ‘We are sisters,’ said one of the brides, Manar, 19, pointing to her sister Deena, 18. Their respective grooms Wahib, 27 and Ahmad, 26 are brothers.
‘I hardly know which I am happier about,’ says Deena, ‘that this is my wedding day or that it’s the day the last settlers have left our land. This is the first truly happy occasion in my life.’
It is a typical arranged marriage. Wahib explains: ‘When my mum went out looking for brides for me and my brother my aunt told her about a neighbour’s daughters who might be suitable.’
After five years of conflict Gaza’s economy has been decimated and parents looking to match their daughters to pairs of brothers has become a common phenomenon. A double wedding cuts the cost and otherwise many young people could never afford to get married.
‘I prayed to God that our wedding would go ahead without problems,’ said Wahib, concerned that the pullout could have led to violence. Instead there is a growing sense of Palestinian self-esteem. ‘The Palestinians don’t feel humiliated any more. We have less now but in the long term our sacrifice will be worth it,’ says one of the guests.
Outside the wedding hall, the beach was packed with midnight picnickers. Throughout the disengagement, as settlers fought with soldiers, Palestinians have been swimming in the Mediterranean – fully dressed women splashing alongside half-naked kids as men washed their horses in the surf.
One day the Palestinian Authority put on a victory show at the port. Not to be outdone, the next day Islamic Jihad put its victory show on the water, filling fishing boats with masked militants who like shooting in the air.
Earlier last week Samir Al Owney stood under a painting of his son Hussain, a militant who was killed by a tank shell in 2003 during an Israeli army invasion. Hussain was 16 and had joined the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade behind his father’s back.
‘I would have stopped him’, said Samir, ‘but I didn’t know. I can’t believe the Israelis will ever leave, but if they do it is thanks to Hussain and the other martyrs who died to defend our people and liberate our lands.’
Then the unexpected happened – the settlers started to leave in a hurry. ‘Could we ever have believed the Israelis would destroy their houses in Netzarim and Gush Katif?’ asked Aziza Ghaben, 49, a mother-of- five and a Hamas politician from Beit Hanina.
‘But resistance will not stop,’ she warned, ’till we have liberated our land. We were in a small prison, now we are in a bigger one. They still control our borders and continue the occupation in Jenin and Jerusalem and we will not accept it.’
A few miles south in Deir el-Balah, Yehia Abu Samra is waiting anxiously for the day he can return to his land and house in the Kfar Darum settlement.
A father-of-eight, he abandoned his house at the beginning of the intifada. ‘I was hanging on in my own home till the bullets drove me out. My home was surrounded by a fence and we couldn’t leave without permission from the Israelis. We had become part of the settlement.’
His new house is 500 metres away from his old home and his 160 dunams (40 acres) of land. The pink curtains in the sitting room are perforated with bullet holes. The shots are fired from an Israeli watchtower built on Abu Samra’s land. Abu Samara is a former general who now works in the Palestinian Interior ministry. He served 24 years in jail for fighting the Israelis in 1968. The pullout perturbs him.
‘The price I paid is not equal to the reward – I wanted a Palestinian state. I feel like I’ve been stabbed.’ From the roof of his house he watches bulldozers and tanks speed across his land, leaving storms of sand in their wake. He wonders if his house will be in ruins when the soldiers have left.
‘My biggest worry about Gaza is this – who will control our borders? Our airspace? Our sea?’ he says. It is a worry shared by most Gazans.
Nor is he fully optimistic about the future. ‘I hope this is not the last withdrawal,’ he says. ‘The Israelis can never return to Gaza. I hope now that we move the struggle to the West Bank. ‘ – Guardian Unlimited Â