Photo Journalist Captures the Marriage of a 15YO and His14YO #childbride in Gaza.

He got a phone call from a friend asking if he wanted to photograph a wedding in Gaza. He told him he wasn’t interested but when he heard that the groom was 15 years old and the bride was one year younger than him, the photographer rushed to the location immediately.

After arriving he saw people celebrating in the street not far from the border between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip. Among them was a young Palestinian boy being carried on the shoulders of relatives and friends. He couldn’t believe that the boy was the groom until he asked him and he replied with a smile, “yes I am”.


GALLERY: PALESTINIAN TEEN WEDDING

After he finished celebrating at a party held a day before the official wedding, he went to play with friends in the street where they enjoyed flavored frozen drinks.

The second day he went back and continued covering the story, the official wedding was to take place that day. He was surprised when he saw the groom’s mother helping him put on his wedding suit. The photographer couldn’t avoid thinking that it looked as if she was dressing him for school. After that he started combing his hair using a broken piece of a mirror.

He then realized how poor the family was when he noticed that him and his wife share the three room house with the rest of the family, another nine people.

The photographer asked the young groom if he could go with him into the house where the bride was getting prepared. When they entered the house, which was only next door, he realized that the family had not yet repaired the damage that was caused from an Israeli strike in 2009. When young Soboh looked at his bride and saw she was veiled, his face became frank and serious. At that moment the bride spoke to her groom and said, “lets smile and have our photo taken”. One thing she forgot to do before posing for the photograph was to remove her veil.

Culled from Reuters