"Hello! Thank you for picking up this bottle!" began the letter in neat black handwriting. "We are currently on holiday in Rhodes and would love to know how far this bottle got – even if it's just the next beach!"

800 kilometeres from Rhodes Island in Greece, off the coast of the Gaza strip, 54 year-old Jihad al-Soltan caught the first piece of personal mail he ever received in his fishing net. 

A month earlier, Beth and Zac, spent their last day on vacation from England leaving a handwritten note and flowers to the hands of serendipity.

Zac knew of Bethany's dream to send a message in a bottle and hearing word of the unexpected recipient. Zac brought the bottle with him, signing it with an email address in hopes of finding a connection to someone else in the Meditterenean. 

Zac and Bethany would spend the remaining month checking their emails for any word of the bottle's recipient, whether it was from a different beach on the same island, or from an entirely different continent. 

On the other side of the Meditterenean, Gaza is in its tenth year of the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt. People of Gaza live in one of the most densley populated areas in the world, unable to enter or leave; completely dependent on Israel for constantly denied water and electricty, and inability to import or export goods. 

The message may have been a welcome change for Jihad, who has lived under the Israeli occupation for years. Jihad broke the bottle open and had his son-in-law, Wael, translate the water damaged parchment inside. 

Wael is an English teacher who, like Jihad, share the same wish of connecting with the world outside of Gaza. Three years ago, Wael would send his own message in a bottle out into the sea, with the words "end the siege" written in Arabic. 

Wael never received a response. 

"I want them to know that Gazans are nice people and wish to have a nice life like theirs. We wish to be able to travel and do such romantic things," says Jihad. 

Wael would later show the message to his friend Mahmoud, who was inspired to send Zac and Bethany his own message by email: "Hi from palestine gaza hi for you zak and beth my friend find ur botlle the best thing in this life love and feel happy when find people love each other like Zak and Beth wish you all the best."

"It was certainly incredible that our bottle was found at all, let alone on a beach in Gaza," Wright said in an email to NPR, who reported the adventures this bottle was on between its messengers.

"So tragic the situation there means people are so cut off, but the bottle reaching there illustrates greatly how we are just all one world, all connected by one ocean and loved by one God."