KHAN YUNIS, (PIC)
Between the rubble of houses in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, and under a sky heavy with warplanes, the young man Muhannad Osman Farwana, twenty-five years old, was preparing to start a long-awaited new life, before the war cut short his path to his wedding and turned his joy into an open funeral.
Muhannad was nothing but a young man trying to snatch a moment of life amidst a reality weighing heavily on the city with destruction, so he prepared his tent on the roof of his partially damaged house, and got ready for his wedding night despite all the surrounding conditions, hoping to start a new chapter of his life.
From henna to the last dawn
In the night that preceded his martyrdom, Muhannad lived with his family the atmosphere of the “henna night”, where family and friends gathered in an attempt to create a space of joy in the midst of the war.
But the early hours of dawn on Saturday carried the end, after an Israeli raid targeted the Farwana family home in the center of the city of Khan Yunis, which led to the martyrdom of Muhannad a few hours before his wedding time.
The house that was preparing to receive well-wishers turned into a scene of destruction and shock, while the family began attempts to extract the injured and the martyrs from under the rubble.
The tragedy under fire
The martyr’s aunt recounted the details of the first moments after the bombardment, and she said, “My sister’s son is a groom, his henna was tonight, he was on the floor above sleeping in a tent, and we were below, and we woke up to the tragedy of targeting and martyrdom.”
“I woke up to find myself with my hand bleeding, and the fire blazing in the place, and I did not know after that what happened, they took me out in the ambulance and they brought Muhanad, only he was burned, all of him was burned.”
The wedding suit bearing witness to the dream
On the roof of the house, the details of joy remained bearing witness to what was supposed to be a different day.
The wedding suit, the white shirt, and the red tie, alongside the flowers that were prepared to decorate the wedding tent, were extracted from among the debris covered with dust and ash.
Those belongings are no longer just preparations for the night of a lifetime, but rather turned into symbols of a dream that was broken before it was completed.
My heart is burning
In a painful scene, the martyr’s mother appeared embracing the wedding suit of her son amidst tears and collapse, unable to comprehend the moment that brought her together with the last of what remained of her son’s memories.
She said, “God willing he will wear it in heaven, my heart is burning, all my life I have been waiting for his joy and his wedding.”
The story of Muhannad Farwana summarizes a wider scene in the Gaza Strip, where war intersects with the most private human moments, so joys turn into funerals, and promises into an early farewell.
Muhannad departed before wearing his wedding suit, and before taking his first step towards his new life, leaving behind a burned tent and a house that was waiting for joy, but it received loss, leaving his wedding invitation bearing witness to a joy that was not completed.