Weddings offer break from gloom in Gaza Strip
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Like dozens of other couples who got married this summer in the isolated Gaza Strip, for Saed and Falasteen Abu Aser, their wedding was an elaborately planned celebration, complete with a procession through streets of their neighborhood.
The coastal territory has faced three wars with Israel over the last decade and a stifling blockade imposed by both Israel and Egypt after the Islamic militant Hamas group violently overran the territory in 2007.
[...] for the happy couple and their families, a wedding is both a respite from daily hardships and a focal point in the lives of both the well-off and the poor.
On the day of the wedding, the families gathered for a cheerful lunch before the bride and groom got all spruced up for the big night — he in a black suit and she in a white gown and matching cape, her face daubed in white powder.