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9/05/2009 09:55:00 PM Reporter: Editor Publisher Hiyam Noir
Hamas's Tayseer provides $2800 in aid to the newlyweds and organizes larger group weddings celebrations annually. Its humanitarian program offers welfare programs to the poor that cover medical care to food coupons and religious programs for the children.
CAIRO - Marwa Awad
Marleen Abu Sal, 27, is one of Gaza's countless unmarried women searching for a husband, a rare commodity in the war torn enclave. With no luck in finding someone through traditional family routes, she turned to the Islamist group Hamas for help.
"It is hard finding a husband here," Marleen said, "they are either married with kids or cannot afford to keep a wife."
Hamas may be Gaza's Islamic armed resistance and the governing party, but it is also the Strip's top matchmaker and the last hope for many unmarried women, many of whom struggle to find a husband in a war torn society." Like everybody else I want to get married but the traditional family matchmaking connections were leading me nowhere so I opted for Hamas "
Marleen Abu Sal, single in GazaThe association is a Hamas-run humanitarian organization, one of several social and welfare services provided by Hamas loyalists. Hamas branched out from resistance into matters of the heart in 2007 as Israel began imposing an all-out blockade on the Strip after Hamas took power.
Prices flared as basic commodities like food, water and medicine were seldom available. Basic furnishings like dressers and refrigerators became unaffordable for young couples.
After Israel’s three week war on Gaza in that ended in January, husbands became a rare commodity as well Hamas's mission in Gaza" We started out by providing welfare services to young couples who could not make ends meet to get married "Wael Zarid, director of Tayseer.“We started out by providing welfare services to young couples who could not make ends meet to get married,” Dr. Wael Zarid, director of Tayseer Association for Marriage and Development, told Al Arabiya, adding that marriage costs were the main obstacle to Gaza’s youth.
“But after Israel’s war on Gaza, our mission is now to ensure the perpetuation of our people and allow young people to get married, have families and rebuild their battered society,” Zarid said.
The latest war decimated traditional societal structures. Of the 1,400 killed, 900 were men who in turn left behind 700 wives, or “widows of martyrs” as they are referred to. And more than half of the 5,000 injured were male amputees or men with other handicaps. "
"You have an increasing number of women in Gaza searching for husbands to no avail because of economic hardship.Much of the remaining male population has been forced to find work and stability outside the Gaza Strip, compounding an already-imbalanced population in which there are three women to every man" - Waleed al-Maydanah, one of Tayseer's social workers, explained to Al Arabiya.
"You have an increasing number of women in Gaza searching for husbands to no avail because of economic hardship," said Maydanah. "We do our best to arrange the right matches and bypass traditional taboos like marriage to older women or divorcees."
Gazan society is a religiously conservative Muslim society that is also among the poorest in the world.In such a society a woman's marriageable age is very short and hitting 30 while still single means you have missed the 'marriage train', " psychologist Reem Abu Fayed told Al Arabiya.
A new ethos
We are seeing a wave of maturity in Gaza's youth, many of whom take wives of shuhadaa (martyrs) and male amputees for husbands. We tell them it is the quality of a Muslim to be merciful, mature while seeking spouses "Maydanah, Tayseer social workerSocial workers and psychologists described the typical ideal for men in the society as a fair-skin, tall woman not older than 26 with "colored eyes," a term for either green or blue eyes. Women tend to value tall, able-bodied, unmarried and economically independent men, the standard ideal across the Arab world.
Years of war and blockades, however, have given rise to a new set of values based on Islamic ideals of martyrdom and the life of the Prophet Mohammed,
"We are seeing a wave of maturity in Gaza's youth many of whom take wives of shuhadaa (martyrs) and male amputees for husbands," Maydanah said. "We tell them it is the quality of a Muslim to be merciful, mature while seeking spouses."" I am honored to marry a wife of a shaheed (martyr) because this is something the Prophet did after several battles left many of the Muslim women widowed ".- Mohammed Ekeel, Tayseer spouse, said she was optimistic that Gaza’s youth were becoming more realistic in their choices given the limited circumstances.
Tayseer has managed to arranged 120 marriages, the most recent of which took place two weeks ago. Afaf Hamdan, 24, one of Gaza's widows of martyrs, married Mohammed Ekeel, 28 and father of four children from two previous marriages after being introduced through Tayseer's matchmakers.
"One of Tayseer's matchmakers contacted me three weeks ago and said they found a potential husband for me," Hamdan told Al Arabiya. "He has children from previous marriage and I have none because my first husband died in the war," Hamdan said.
For Ekeel, marrying a widow of a martyr was "killing two birds with one stone."
"I am honored to marry a wife of a shaheed (martyr) because this is something the Prophet did after several battles left many of the Muslim women widowed," Ekeel told Al Arabiya. "Afaf is the perfect match for me and I am blessed to have a mother to my children and a wife to care for."
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