GOLAN HEIGHTS / SYRIA: Arwad Abu Shaheen, a bride from the occupied Golan Heights, crosses the border to meet her new husband in the Golan

Record ID: 279406

  • Title: GOLAN HEIGHTS / SYRIA: Arwad Abu Shaheen, a bride from the occupied Golan Heights, crosses the border to meet her new husband in the Golan
  • Date: 13th March 2007
  • Summary: (MER2) QUNEITRA, SYRIA (MARCH 12, 2006) (REUTERS) QUNEITRA BORDER CROSSING POINT
  • Embargoed: 28th March 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVAECA29DQ7B3SC92MLMBX0AEV4U
  • Story Text: Love transcended politics in the Golan Heights on Monday (March 12) when a bride in a tiara and wedding gown walked across no man's land to join her groom in Syria.
    Wearing a long white veil and carrying a bouquet of red flowers, Arwad Abu Shaheen walked down a narrow asphalt road running about 500 metres between minefields from Israeli-held territory to Syria.
    Hundreds of exuberant Syrians and Golan Heights residents surged from either side towards a United Nations post midway between the two areas as the bride met her husband who escorted her into Syria to begin her new life.
    "Over there (in Syria) it is also my country, here we are under occupation. It is an occupied area. There, for him (her fiancé), it is his country, and for us it is the same," said the 25-year-old Druze bride in her home village of Botika in the Golan Heights.
    Arwad met her future husband Muhannad Harb in Jordan. They both come from the same extended family and their five or six meetings in Amman were arranged by relatives with a view to possible marriage. They fell in love and kept in touch by internet, and finally set a wedding date.
    Israel captured the Golan Heights plateau in the 1967 Middle East war. Syria wants it back as the price for any peace between them.
    The two countries are formally at war. Their only tenuous link is the Golan crossing between Syria and the Israeli border post, known as both Alpha Gate and the Quneitra border crossing point.
    It is technically only a UN crossing but brides, students and pilgrims use it under humanitarian circumstances.
    The Golan Druze belong to a secretive Islamic sect dispersed in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Many families were separated between Israel and Syria after the disengagement lines were drawn after the 1967 war.
    Now they call across to each other from what is popularly known as the Shouting Wall, or arrange marriages for their children, some of whom never meet their spouses until their wedding day.
    The arrangement started after 1981 when Israel annexed the Golan Heights.
    Since Israel and Syria have no diplomatic ties, the nuptials transcend passports and visas.
    "The issue of family reunion -- because as you all know Israel and Syria do not have peace agreement between them. If you have someone from the Golan wishes to unite with her perspective husband in Syria then you need a humanitarian neutral intermediary to make this happen," said International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesperson Yael Eitan.
    At the Syrian side of the crossing point, family members of the groom prepared him to meet his brides and sang jubilant songs in preparation for welcoming the bride.
    On the opposite side, the bride bid her family members and friends an emotional farewell, not know when she would be able to meet them again. She then passed through the gate to join her husband.
    The groom said the event left him with mixed feelings.
    "I am so happy first of all, and at the same time I feel sad because I am on the border crossing point and I hope there will be peace and that we can go back and forth, and that the Golan will return to its original country," said Harb after welcoming his bride.
    "I hope that in the future that no one will arrive in their country the same way I did. I hope they will be able to come and go whenever they want," Abu Shaheen said, her satin dressing trailing in the dust as she stood on the arm of her groom.
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