Israeli air strikes on Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip in February destroyed a building housing a gym owned by Adli al-Assar, who later decided he did not need a building to resume his business.
“I went to the place and dug with my hands, my sons’ hands and my friends’ hands until we were able to retrieve some of the devices,” Al-Assar said.
Al-Assar filled the rehabilitated gym with tools and equipment he had salvaged from the rubble and spread them out on an empty plot of land surrounded by a metal fence, where dozens of Gazans gathered to lift weights in the open air.
For displaced men and young boys who have no way to contain their anger and forget their worries and sorrows, it is more than just a sport, says Al-Assar.
He explained, “There is a great demand to play this game from cubs, champions, and all age groups. They come to this place to release their negative energy and to release the bad psychological state they live in in the tents and the heat of the tents.”
Nearly a year after the war began with a Hamas-led attack on Israel and was followed by an Israeli military operation that drove nearly all of Gaza’s population from their homes, there is little entertainment. All schools are closed, and public buildings are being bombed or shuttered.
In the gym, a trainee named Tariq was doing arm and chest exercises and helping another person there. “Of course, I lost everything, we lost our families and we lost our homes,” he said.
Tariq continued, saying, “We come here to this club just to vent our anger, instead of taking it out in the middle of the house and destroying the house and the tent. We come here to vent our anger in the iron.”