KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — He said he fell for “her ideas, her thoughts.” She said he made her forget she was overweight, and “feel beautiful.”
They flirted awkwardly at a conference in Amman, Jordan, where they met in 2011. Then, in flurries of text messages over a few weeks, they discovered they both were interested in photography and astronomy and craved the Saudi rice dish kabsa. Their mobile phones both had the Backstreet Boys song with the lyrics: “I don’t care who you are/Where you’re from/Or what you did/As long as you love me.” They got engaged, exchanging rings and completing a contract to marry in an Islamic court.
But theirs is a love unfulfilled. Dalia Shurrab, 32, lives here in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, and Rashed Sameer Faddah, 35, in the West Bank city of Nablus. Romance is not among the humanitarian reasons for which Israel allows Palestinians to travel from here to there.
Now, the couple have started a Facebook campaign calling on President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to “Deliver the Bride to the Groom.”
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“What are you doing?” he asked when they connected one evening last week.
“I’m waiting for you,” she replied.
She smiled when he told her he had white beans for lunch. She had white beans, too.
Every day, Ms. Shurrab irons the lacy white gown and veil she had a seamstress make for $400 three years ago, because, she said, “I want to be ready and look like a princess with Rashed.”
She savors photographs from their four days together in Gaza: They stood at the sea, ate ice cream in the street, and had a formal engagement party at which Mr. Faddah placed shiny gold jewelry on her neck, wrist and ears, the bridegroom’s traditional “shabka” gift to his betrothed.
“We kissed here,” she said, pointing to the doorway of the living room and giggling again. “After this moment, I felt like he belonged to me and he’s the only one I can live with for the rest of my life.”
A version of this article appears in print on February 8, 2015, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: In Territories, Love Struggles to Bridge the Separation. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
