A love story, Gaza style: a 29-years old Hamas operative married a young Russian woman, smuggled to the Gaza Strip via Egypt.
The two met for the first time only after the bride arrived in Gaza, but had been involved in a virtual affair – via the internet – for the past five years.
A few yeas back, the young Hamas operative, then 24, found his way to a Russian-based Islamic internet forum, where he met a Russian sheik, who told him of many Russian women who convert to Islam, but found themselves in an all-too secular environment.
The two decided that the sheik would try to find a suitable match for the young Gazan, and not long after that he began chatting with his future wife.
During their five-year courtship, the two learned each others languages, and the young bride was introduced, through the web, to her future in-laws.
After the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the young man decided it was time to take the relationship to the next level.
His bride was brought to Cairo about 10 days before the wedding, where a local sheik took her to Sinai. She was then smuggled through a cramped tunnel, a few hundred meters long, into Gaza.
A source close to the two told Ynet Wednesday that the dowry – some $3,000 – was apparently paid not to the groom's family, but to the Palestinian under whose house the tunnel was dug.
A few days ago, the two preformed the traditional Muslim marriage ceremony and are now officially husband and wife.