Israeli air strike leaves Gaza groom without bride months before wedding

Dania Adas and her sister were among the 26 Palestinians dead in latest batch of air strikes

Family members mourn sisters Dania and Eman Adas at their funeral. Nagham Mohanna for The National

Mohammed Saed is lost.

Left with only the memories of the woman he loved, he is inconsolable as he flips through photos of happier times on his phone.

Instead of starting a new life with Dania Adas, 19, he is attending her funeral.

Ms Adas lies next to her sister Eman, 17, wrapped in a white shroud. They were killed in an Israeli air strike on their Gaza city home on Tuesday night.

The target of the strike was the house next door, which Israel’s military believed was sheltering high-level members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

While the predawn air strike killed three militants, it also killed at least 10 civilians — among them the Adas sisters.

“We were preparing for our wedding, making the last touches to our home,” Mr Saed, 22, told The National.

The couple had hopes for a better future, not only for themselves but for Gaza.

They had even chosen a name for their hoped-for firstborn son — Samah.

Videos shared on social media show Mr Saed sitting beside his fiancée's body, reading the Quran over her.

Ms Adas, a university student, was asleep in her room, surrounded by wedding gifts and new clothes, when the strike occurred.

“The heavy sound of bombing woke me up, to find dust everywhere, so I ran immediately to my daughters' room calling them, but unfortunately didn't get any reply,” Alaa Adas, Dania and Eman's father, said, tears streaming down his face.

“I started to dig in the rubble, looking for my daughters. First, I found Dania.

“I tried to wake her up, but she didn't respond, so I figured out that she is a martyr.”

Eman was alive when she was found and taken to hospital, where she later died.

“This is a crime … we were supposed to go to the market to buy her the marriage gift, but when she found that the price of the gold was high, she told me to wait,” Mr Adas said.

Several families have lost loved ones in the recent violence.

Tit-for-tat rocket exchanges between Israel and Palestinian resistance groups have killed at least 26 Palestinians, among them children, as well as one Israeli.

Militants in the Gaza Strip have fired 620 rockets at Israel since Wednesday, the Israeli military said on Thursday night. A total of 179 have been intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system.

The Israeli army said it had fired at 191 targets across Gaza on Thursday.

Shops in Gaza were shuttered and the streets mostly abandoned as Israeli military aircraft circled over the territory, where several buildings lay in ruins.

Ceasefire efforts mediated by Egypt have yet to bear fruit.

But for those gathered at the two women's funeral, the wider political situation has little import.

“Just imagine that suddenly you lose the love of your life — how you would feel,” Mr Saed said before breaking down in tears.