Dressed in a white wedding dress, Nihal al-Safadi crossed into Syria from Israel yesterday to get married.
Al-Safadi, a 25-year-old Druse from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, was greeted by her fiance and his family and was accompanied by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) officials.
"I am sad because I have left behind my family, but at the same time I am happy to join my relatives," she said upon arrival in Quneitra, on the Syrian side of the border.
Al-Safadi met her fiance and cousin, Rabei al-Safadi, in Jordan a few months ago.
A 32-year-old merchant, Rabei al-Safadi applied to the Red Cross for marriage and two months later, he received approval.
"I am very glad that she finally arrived here," he said. "I hope that the Golan will return to Syria and all these barriers are removed."
"I hope peace would prevail to rejoin our relatives on the other side of the border," he added.
More than 20,000 Arabs who follow the minority Druse sect, an offshoot of Islam, live on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, along with 15,000 Israeli settlers. Israel seized the strategic strip from Syria during the 1967 war.
The ICRC-assisted Nihal al-Safadi will not be permitted to return to Israel. The festive mood was mixed with the sadness of impending family separation but there was some hope that recent indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel would pave the way for direct negotiations and eventually lead to a peace treaty.
Syrian-Israeli peace talks broke down in 2000 but both countries have recently held rounds of indirect peace talks under Turkish mediation.-
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