QUARANTINE - DAY 15 - 20th March 2020

It has now been two weeks since the first infected people of Bethlehem were quarantined in the Angel hotel, and so today a group were allowed to return home to continue self-isolation for 14 days there, while church bells rang out to celebrate the end of their quarantine. Another uplifting story today:

Love in the time of Corona

"The bride and groom invite you to stay in your homes and pray for them on the occasion of their wedding in the light of the Coronavirus crisis."

This was the content of the wedding invitation of Baraa Amarneh from Dheisha camp and Imad Sharaf from the town of Dhahiriya, south of Hebron, which was held today. Only family and close relatives can attend and they must follow the rules of quarantine, preventing mass gatherings. The bride said she does not like the noise and hustle of large weddings, so a small wedding party will reduce her fears. She said she was happy with the decision to hold a small ceremony, because the usual wedding custom includes costs which put a burden on young people, and usually the first year of marriage is spent paying off debts.

"My friends sent me a picture of a wedding in the eighties via Facebook as a kind of humour, where the wedding was held at the groom's home with a small number of attendees, and now in 2020 weddings will return to the days of simplicity and beauty, where the feelings are real and simple and there is no kind of hypocrisy," she continued.

She explained that at first her mother suggested postponing the ceremony because she wanted to celebrate with her daughter and share the festivities with her neighbours and relatives, but in the end she accepted the wedding would be like this. For his part, the bride’s father, Mahmoud Amarneh, said that there would be no wedding ceremonies as usual, stressing that they must cope with the current conditions.

He added that he had been building up his hopes that his family would be reunited on this joyous occasion and that they had been planning it since last summer. He explained that the original plan for 12 cars had been reduced to three, and coordination was done with the police to put the name of the groom and his family at the national security checkpoints to allow them to pass, while stressing no children should attend. And God called that this cloud be removed from Palestine and the whole world, and that people take from this crisis an important lesson, which is not to burden the young people with the costs of marriage.

Weddings hopefully from now on will be simple and blessed. 


Photos: Mohamed Abu Haniyeh