Hebron, occupied West Bank – Haidar Yahya Tamimi had finished preparing his home, bought new furniture, chosen his wedding suit, and sent invitations to around 1,000 people. After four months of preparations, the 27-year-old was due to marry his fiancee, Ruba, on Friday.
Instead, he has been forced to leave his home in the al-Jalada neighbourhood, and the wedding has been postponed indefinitely.
Haidar is among thousands of Palestinians displaced by an Israeli military operation in Hebron that began after two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint at the western entrance of the West Bank city on October 23. Both gunmen were killed by Israeli forces.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an immediate lockdown in Hebron, and Israeli bulldozers destroyed buildings in the vicinity of the area where the attack took place, as well as going house to house in the neighbourhoods of al-Jalada and Ein Deir Baha, where the attackers lived.
By Monday, more than 3,100 Palestinians had been forcibly displaced, according to Hebron’s municipality.
Haidar has worked as a radiology technician at the Palestine Red Crescent Society Hospital in Hebron for about a year. He had been preparing to celebrate his wedding on Friday, with a feast scheduled for Thursday evening.
He and his fiancee had chosen the furniture for their new home together, as well as his wedding suit, a photograph of which he showed Al Jazeera.
But on the evening of October 23, as Hebron was declared a closed military zone after the attack, Haidar and his family were ordered to leave their homes along with other residents of al-Jalada and Ein Deir Baha. They departed in the middle of the night, taking only what they could carry.
Everything the couple had prepared for the wedding was inside the house, out of their reach. Haidar says they don’t know when they’ll be able to go back.
The groom was able to get to a spot nearby where he could see the house, but wasn’t able to get any closer due to the presence of the Israeli military.
“I looked at the house and saw that my dream was supposed to happen here, but it has been postponed indefinitely,” Haidar said.
He saw Israeli soldiers around the house, and says that relatives showed him security-camera footage of the soldiers entering his home. The current condition of the house is unknown.
As for the wedding, the couple have yet to set another date. First they need to know when they can return home.
Locals estimate that more than 100 businesses have been affected by the Israeli lockdown.
Consider the al-Jalada offices of Rukn al-Asala, a travel agent specialising in Muslim pilgrimage services. Agency manager Kamal al-Sharif, 35, has been unable to reach the office where he has worked with his father for 16 years.
The agency was organising an Umrah religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia for 15 people, set to depart on Wednesday. With the prospective travellers’ passports still in the office, and locals uncertain when the lockdown will end, that trip is likely to be postponed or cancelled.
Among the documents also inside the office are seven passports that Kamal says arrived from the Chinese embassy on October 22, the day before the lockdown. They belong to traders who had planned to travel to China on October 26.
The traders have their visas, but not their passports, and have been unable to travel, Kamal said.
One of the traders, a man in his 30s who did not wish to be named for security reasons, said he had been preparing to attend an exhibition in China where he could source equipment for his family business.
His flight and hotel bookings have now been cancelled – and the trader is stuck, not knowing when he’ll be able to get the products his business needs.
