Al-mawasi, Gaza Strip – sweatshirt takes place on the face of Tareq Abu Youssef while he fights in his gymnasium training on makeshift bodybuilding equipment, each movement more laborious than it should be.
The 23 -year -old Palestinian deliberately retains his minimum training sessions, a painful reduction in the intensive routines that he once loved – but in a territory where almost everyone is hungry, the maintenance of muscle mass has become an act of survival and resistance.
“I lost 14 kilograms, from 72 kg to 58 kg (159 lb at 128 lb), since March,” said Abu Youssef, referring to when Israel has tightened his seat by closing the passages on board and seriously restoring food deliveries. “But if eating has become an anomaly in Gaza, working for bodybuilders like us is a rare way to maintain normality,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Its history reflects a broader humanitarian disaster: through the 365 square kilometers of Gaza, 2.1 million of the Palestinians are faced with the assistance agencies as a deliberate and armed hunger.
The United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs Coordination (OCHA) reports that practically the entire population is faced with “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity, the north of Gaza knowing famine conditions. Doctors without borders, known by its French initials MSF, have documented serious cases of acute malnutrition throughout the band, describing the crisis as “artificial” and deliberately imposed. The World Food Program warns that without immediate intervention, the famine will propagate in all Gaza, while millions of tons of aid are parked at the border passages locked by Israel.
Even when the aid trucks manage to enter through the highly limited crossings of Israel, the distribution of food and other essential articles remains almost impossible due to the current military operations and the general destruction of infrastructure.
During the prolonged rest of Abu Youssef between the machines – now five times longer than before the start of the famine of Gaza – he passes his hands over his chest, his arms and his shoulders, feeling the devastating muscle loss which reflects the physical deterioration of an entire population.
“Famine has completely affected my ability to practice my favorite bodybuilding sport,” explains Abu Youssef in a tent gymnasium in Al-Mawasi, located in the overcrowded southeastern “safety zone”. “I now come to train one day, sometimes two days, a week.
Where he once pressed 90-100kg (200-220 lb), Abu Youssef now manages barely 40 kg (90 lb)-a drop that would be worrying for any athlete but devastating in a context where such physical deterioration becomes the norm in an entire society.
A sports hall among refugees
The fortune installation where Abu Youssef trains exist inside a tent in Al-Mawasi, which now houses around a million displaced Palestinians living in overcrowded and insanitary conditions. Here, in the middle of the tentacular refugee camps, coach Adly al-Assar created an improbable sanctuary, using the recovered equipment from his destroyed gymnasium in Khan Younis.
Al-Assar, a 55-year-old international champion, who won six gold medals at the Arab championships in 2020-2021, managed to save only 10 pieces of equipment over 30 destroyed when Israeli forces bombed his original facilities. The tent gymnasium covers barely 60 square meters (650 square feet), its plastic sheet stretched on two unequal levels of soil, surrounded by refugee tents and sparse trees.
“During this imposed famine, everything has changed,” explains Al-Assar, his own body weight having dropped from 11 kg of 78 kg to 67 kg. “The athletes lost 10 to 15 kilograms and lost their ability to lift weights. My shoulder muscle was 40 centimeters, now it’s under 35, and all the other muscles have suffered the same loss.”
Before the current crisis, his gymnasium welcomed more than 200 athletes daily at all ages. Now, barely 10% can be able to train, and only one or twice a week.
One of these regular visitors to his fortune gymnasium is Ali Al-Azraq, 20, moved from Central Gaza during the first weeks of the war. Its weight dropped from 79 kg to 68 kg – an almost entirely muscular loss. Its bench press capacity increased from 100 kg to only 30 kg, the back of the back from 150 kg to 60 kg and the work of the shoulder from 45 kg to barely 15 kg.
“Most of the loss occurred during the current famine period, which started months ago and intensified in the last month,” said Al-Azraq. “I find nothing to eat, except rarely a piece of bread, rice or pasta in small quantities that keep me alive. But we completely lack all essential nutrients and significant proteins – meat, chicken, healthy oils, eggs, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts and others. ”
The unemployed young man had hoped to participate in official championships against his Palestinian arms before progressing internationally. Instead, he describes current famine as “the hardest thing we live as Gazans, but athletes as we are most affected because we need large quantities of specific and non -ordinary food”.
Training through trauma
However, for these athletes, the tent gymnasium represents more than physical training – it is psychological survival. Khaled al-Bahabsa, 29, who returned to training two months ago after being injured in Israeli bombing on April 19, still carries bursts of shells in the chest and body.
“Sport gives life and psychological comfort. We were closer to the dead even if we were alive, ”explains Al-Bahabsa. “But when I returned to practice my training (from gym), I felt closer to the living than the dead, and the nightmares of the genocide and the hunger withdrew a bit.”
He was amazed to discover the gymnasium among tents and trees. “I considered that I had my passion that the conditions of war forced me to abandon. Bodybuilding is not only a sport – for me and for many of his players, passionate and in love – it’s life. ”
Twenty-two months of implacable bombardment by the Israeli army killed more than 62,000 people, according to the Ministry of Health of the enclave, demolished from the extensive parts of the besieged and displaced territory of the general majority of its people. Those who live try to survive the disastrous humanitarian conditions in the absence of almost absolute food.
Al-Assar has adapted its training methods for famine conditions, strictly asking athletes to minimize training and avoid overexal. The rest periods between the sets now extend to five minutes instead of the 30 seconds at a usual minute. The training sessions are capped at 30 minutes and the athletes do not raise more than half of their pre-family weights.
“The recommendations are strict to shorten the duration of training and increase rest periods,” warns Al-Assar. “We are experiencing a deadly famine crisis, and the training could stop completely if the circumstances continue in this way.”
On a daily basis, the athletes experience complications, including collapse, fainting and inability to move, the coach told Tel Aviv Tribune. “We are in real famine without eating anything. We do not receive any nutrition from all essential and beneficial foods – no animal protein, no healthy oils, nothing. We get a small quantity that would not satisfy a three -year -old child of vegetable proteins from lenses, while other foods are completely absent. ”
But bodybuilders continue to work anyway.
Even when the Israeli air attacks landed just meters from the gymnasium, the athletes continued to present themselves. “I’m hungry all the time and I calculate my only day of training per week – How will I manage my food afterwards?” Said Abu Youssef, a street seller who once aspired to participate in a Gaza leveling championship which was planned two weeks after the start of the war in October 2023.
Youssef, who was excited on the occasion of competing and was in full formation for the championship, destroyed his dream when the war “overthrew everything”. Now the few breads he manages to buy from his weekly gains barely fills him.
“Despite this, I have not lost hope and I was once again training to regain my abilities, even if I am limited and slow, but famine thwarts all these attempts,” he said.
For Al-Bahabsa, moved by Rafah with his family, the simple fact of reaching the training site represents the hope of restoring life in general, not only physical form.
“We aspire to live as the rest of the peoples of the world. We only want peace and life and hate War and the Israeli occupation that external and likes us. It is our right to practice sport, to participate in international competitions, to reach advanced levels and to represent Palestine,” he said.
The tent gymnasium, despite its limits, serves that al-Assar calls a challenge to “the reality of genocide, destruction and displacement”.
As he says: “The idea here is deeper than training. We are looking for the life we want to live with security and tranquility. Gaza and its inhabitants will continue their lives, regardless of the genocide against them. Sport is an aspect of this life. ”
This play was published in collaboration with EGAB.