Mustafa and Nesma al-Borsh\u2019s wedding party was, understandably, a modest affair, considering the conditions in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n
Nesma went to a beauty salon, rented a white dress, and took some photos with her groom, Mustafa. The ceremony and party were held in a tent in eastern Gaza City\u2019s neighbourhood of Tuffah, with only 40 people in attendance.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cI won\u2019t say it was the wedding day I had always dreamed of, but given the harsh conditions we are living under, we tried to steal a few happy moments, and we did,\u201d Nesma said.<\/p>\n Those happy moments were stolen from Mustafa and Nesma.<\/p>\n As last Friday\u2019s celebration wrapped up, Israeli shelling hit a building next to the tent.<\/p>\n The targeted site was a vocational training facility run by Gaza\u2019s Ministry of Education, but had been converted into a shelter during the war. The couple had been planning to live there after the wedding.<\/p>\n Flames rose from the site; dust, smoke, and screams filled the area.<\/p>\n The newlyweds stood in shock, unable to comprehend what was unfolding around them, as their wedding day turned into a tragedy.<\/p>\n \u201cI immediately grabbed my bride\u2019s hand and sent her with my female relatives who had just left. Then I took off my wedding suit jacket and rushed with the other men to rescue those inside the building,\u201d Mustafa, 29, told Al Jazeera from Halawa, a displacement camp in Gaza City near Tuffah.<\/p>\n The shelling directly hit the second floor of the school, where Mustafa\u2019s family were staying with others. It also hit the classroom that had been prepared for the couple to live in. Everything they had arranged for their wedding was burned.<\/p>\n \u201cI helped retrieve bodies and rescue the wounded, and I pulled out my nephew, who was critically injured all over his body,\u201d Mustafa said.<\/p>\n Ambulances were called, but emergency crews required Israeli coordination to enter the area.<\/p>\n \u201cWe waited more than two hours for the ambulances to arrive, but they were not allowed to enter from the Israeli side,\u201d he added. \u201cThe situation was indescribably terrifying. We could hear strikes and shelling around us.\u201d<\/p>\n After more than two hours, ambulances were eventually allowed in to evacuate the wounded and the dead.<\/p>\n After civil defence teams evacuated everyone from the building, instructing them to move to a safer location, they retrieved the victims.<\/p>\n Families were displaced, again, to shelters for internally displaced people inside the city, leaving behind all their belongings.<\/p>\n \u201cSince that day, I\u2019m still wearing my wedding suit,\u201d the groom told Al Jazeera, pointing to his white shirt and trousers.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a bloodstain belonging to my eight-year-old nephew, Mohammad, who died two days later from his injuries,\u201d Mustafa said.<\/p>\n Mustafa got engaged to the now 22-year-old Nesma several months before Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023.<\/p>\n Their wedding had been scheduled for that month.<\/p>\n \u201cMy apartment was fully ready: the bedroom, sofa set, kitchen. My fianc\u00e9e and I put great effort into choosing every piece,\u201d Mustafa said, showing a photo of the apartment that had been part of his family\u2019s home in Jabalia, northern Gaza. It was later destroyed.<\/p>\n The couple had endured bombardment, hunger, and repeated displacement with their families, making the idea of a wedding seem impossible.<\/p>\n \u201cOur families occasionally pressured us to go ahead with the wedding since the war was dragging on, but we both refused,\u201d Nesma said, with Mustafa nodding in agreement. \u201cWe kept asking ourselves how we could celebrate or hold a wedding amid war and displacement.\u201d<\/p>\n What further distanced the idea of marriage was Mustafa\u2019s grief after losing two of his older brothers during the war, one in December 2023, when their home in Jabalia was bombed, and another in March 2025, during the second half of the war.<\/p>\n \u201cLosing my brothers cast an overwhelming shadow of grief over us, especially my mother, who cannot stop crying whenever she remembers them,\u201d Mustafa said, glancing at his mother as she listened to the conversation.<\/p>\n After a ceasefire began on January 19, 2025, the couple decided to proceed with the wedding, believing the war had ended. But it quickly resumed.<\/p>\n \u201cAt that time, my uncle\u2019s house in Jabalia was still standing, so we decided to take an apartment there and started preparing it. My bride began preparing herself and her clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut we were shocked when the war broke out again in mid-March 2025,\u201d Mustafa said.<\/p>\n With the return of the war, both were forced to flee with their families from northern Gaza to the west of Gaza City, where they lived in tents under harsh conditions until a second ceasefire came into effect on October 10, 2025.<\/p>\n After the October ceasefire was announced, Mustafa and his family moved to a shelter in the Tuffah neighbourhood, about half a kilometre (0.3 miles) from the so-called \u201cyellow line\u201d, beyond which Israel retains control in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to escape life in the tents during the winter, so we decided to move into the school despite our concerns about its proximity to the yellow line,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Following family discussions, both families agreed to hold the wedding on December 19, with a modest celebration in a tent adjacent to the shelter.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce the date was set, I prepared what I could. Other displaced families in the shelter helped me, and they provided a classroom for us. Everything seemed to be going well,\u201d Mustafa said.<\/p>\n Mustafa said he never expected the shelter to be attacked, as it was housing a large number of displaced families, the surrounding neighbourhood was densely populated, and the area lay outside the yellow line.<\/p>\n The educational centre was located in an area from which Israeli forces had withdrawn, in line with the ceasefire agreement.<\/p>\n Despite the truce, hundreds of Israeli violations have been recorded, with more than 400 Palestinians killed in repeated attacks over recent months.<\/p>\n Eight people were killed in the shelling of the building next to the wedding tent, all neighbours and relatives of Mustafa\u2019s family, who had been sheltering on the second floor, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAmong those killed were a mother, her husband, and their child, as well as my young nephew, who had been dancing with joy just moments earlier,\u201d Mustafa said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat justification is there for targeting these people? And what crime did I commit for my bride and me to have our joy stolen on our wedding day?\u201d<\/p>\n The couple is now, once again, living separately with their families due to the renewed displacement and the lack of a place to live together.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time, I have to start from zero again. Is there suffering greater than this?\u201d Mustafa added in despair.<\/p>\n \u201cI am displaced, my bride is displaced, our families are displaced, living in tents with relatives.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe insisted on holding our wedding during the war, but the war returned in the blink of an eye on the very day of our wedding,\u201d Nesma said, her eyes heavy with grief.<\/p>\n \u201cMy joy is shattered. I have no desire for life. Everything feels dark here, and there is no space for happiness, not even one step.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mustafa and Nesma al-Borsh\u2019s wedding party was, understandably, a modest affair, considering the conditions in the Gaza Strip. Nesma went to a beauty salon, rented a white dress, and took some photos with her groom, Mustafa. The ceremony and party were held in a tent in eastern Gaza City\u2019s neighbourhood of Tuffah, with only 40 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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