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War-ravaged Gaza families marrying in-laws for support

It is common practice in Gaza for a widow or widower to marry an in-law to keep the family together, and often they are being promised financial assistance to do so.
A Palestinian walks near the remains of houses, that witnesses said were destroyed or damaged by Israeli shelling during the July-August war between Israel and Hamas-led Gaza militants, in the east of Gaza City January 4, 2015. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem (GAZA - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTR4K02O
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Ali Abd Rabbo is 19, but looks even younger. He sits in front of a computer, chatting on Facebook like most of his peers. In a few days, however, Ali will do something that he is not really prepared to do: He is going to marry two older women — the wives of his two brothers who were killed in the 2014 war against Israel.

In their house in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, Jihad, 24, was sitting on her bed, holding a picture of her daughter Rahaf, 3, and her husband, Alaa. Tears streamed from her right eye. She had lost her left eye in the shelling that killed her husband, her daughter, her mother-in-law, her brother-in-law Mohammed and his two-year-old son Jamal, and two other brothers-in-law, Ibrahim, 22, and Abdullah, 23.

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